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THE 

EMERALD ISLE 

A POEM. 



o. 



THE 



EMERALD ISLE; 



A POEM. 



BY CHARLES PHILLIPS, ESQ. 

BARRISTER AT LAW. 



s; Finibus occiduis describitur optima tellus, 
Nomine et antiquis Scotia scripta libris, 
Insula, dives opum, gemmarum, i estis et auri, 
Commoda corporibus, aere, sole, solo,— 
Melle fluit pulchris et lacteis Scotia eampis, 
Vestibus atque armis, fru gibus, arte, viris, 
Ursorum rabies nulla est ibi— saeva leonum 
Semina, nee unquam Scotica terra tulit. 
Nulla venena nocent, nee serpens serp it in herba, 
Nee conquests canit gamila rana lacu! 
In qua Scotorum gentes habitare merentur, 
Inclyta gens hominuin, milite, pace, fide." 

DONATUS. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

PUBLISHED BY JOHN CONRAD & CO. 

James Maxwell, printer. 

1816. 



TR ^l 

T7 £ ,f,t 



>V ^.^.fc 



to 






TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS 

THE PKINCE REGENT, 

Ireland's hope, and England's 

ORNAMENT, 

THE FOLLOWING POE]& 

is, 

WITH HIS AUTHORITY, 

GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED. 

Sligo, Ireland, 22J April, 1812, 



PREFACE. 



A brief outline of the following poem was 
some time since presented to the public, under the 
title of " The Consolations of Erin." The recep. 
tion of my rude and unfinished sketch so far sur- 
passed my most sanguine expections, that, were it 
only out of gratitude, I could do no less than en- 
deavour to repay, as far as labour could repay, the 
loan with which I had been so prematurely honour- 
ed. Conscious, however, of many errors, and na- 
turally fearful of more, the only apology which I 
can offer is the purity of my motive. 

When I first embarked for England, in the pur- 
suit of my professional studies, my mosc poignant 
emotions were, as might be expected, love for my 
native land, and regret at leaving it; but, the neces- 
sity of a separation, and the prospect of return, 
gradually subdued the force of feeling, and the 
first sight of England effaced, for the moment, 
every rival impression. With mute and wondering 
contemplation, I saw her rise before me in the so- 
litude of the ocean — the hermitage of the good, the 
wise, and the free — the temple where Milton wor- 
shipped, Shakspeare sung", and Chatham slept — 
where Piety fled for her last earthly refuge, and 
Freedom hailed her insulted sanctuary! 

Little was it to be wondered at that a youthful 
mind, thus contemplating her abstract splendour. 



3 PREFACE, 

should have expected, perhaps extravagantly, an 
individual conformity. But, alas! what was my 
astonishment to find, among those " lords of hu- 
man kind," a prejudice against my native land, 
predominant above every other feeling — inveterate 
as ignorance could generate, and monstrous as cre- 
dulity could feed! Was there an absurdity uttered 
— -i^ was Irish! was there a crime committed — it 
was Irish! was there a freak at which folly would 
blush — a frolic which levity would disown — a cru- 
elty at which barbarism would shudder — none 
could hatch or harbour them but an Irishman! Ire- 
land was the ribald's jest and the miser's profit — 
the painter sold her in caricature, the ballad-sing- 
er ch anted her in burlesque, and the pliant senator 
eked out his stupid hour with the plagiarism of 
her slander! In the very seat of legislation it was 
deliberately asserted that Ireland was w a burthen" 
on the empire! The judicious apothegm remains 
upon record, a solitary memorial of its author's elo- 
quence, and most characteristic specimen of his 
political sagacity. To those who could either ut- 
ter or patiently hear such an absurdity I adduce 
no argument — their ignorance is too prejudiced to 
be taught, and their prejudice too contemptible to 
be combated: but, to the liberal and the thinking 
is offered, in the following pages, an imperfect 
summary of Ireland's benefactions, not only to Eng- 
land, but to the world — benefactions of deep inte- 
rest to the nation which received, and of perma- 
nent glory to the nation which bestowed them 



PREFACE. 9 

Elated as my spirit must naturally be at the re- 
cital of my country's merits, it is, nevertheless, 
bowed down with the consciousness of personal 
misrepresentation. Such is the unhappy state of 
Ireland, that party brands the name of patriotism, 
and a love for the land is deemed an enmity to the 
government! Our very virtues are sicklied with 
the hue of suspicion—- ar liberality is rebellion — 
our candour craft — our piety polemics! Whether it 
be by foreign gold or by native misfortune, there 
is generated within our soil a monster more watch- 
ful and more venomous than the vipers which shun 
us. Awed by no virtue, subdued by no kindness, 
and crushed by no correction, it strengthens with 
our weakness, and feeds on our famine;— like the 
poison tree of Java,* spreading its verdant branches 
to the sky, while it blasts and withers the soil 
which gave it birth! The monster is Disunion. 
While that hydra lives Ireland cannot prosper; but 
let us once banish it the land, and we shall then 
see who dare refuse us a just right or offer an un- 
expiated insult. • 

For myself, / here ?nost solemnly abjure all party 
spirit whatsoever. — I merge the partisan in the 
Irishman — the sectarian in the Christian — the 
Romanist in the man. I look upon my country 
as a parent, and on her natives as brethren; and, 
with that filial and fraternal spirit, I offer them 
the effusions of an heart which throbs but for their 
welfare. 

* See " Sketches, civil and military, of the island of Java,— 
Second edition." 

A 2 



THE 



EMERALD ISLE: 



A POEM 



JbiRIN, dear by every tie 
Which binds us to our infancy; 
By weeping Memory's fondest claims, 
By Nature's holiest, highest names, 

By the sweet potent spell that twines 
The exile's secret heart around, 
By wo and distance faster bound, 

When for his native soil he pines, 
As, wafted o'er the clouded deep, 

And shuddering at the tempest's roar 5 
He thinks how sweet its waters sleep 

Upon thy lone and lovely shore: 



12 THE EMERALD ISLE, 

By the indignant patriot's tear, 
Oh! even by misfortune dear. 

En isr, from thy living tomb 

Arise — the hour of hope is come. 

Think on what thou once hast been; 

Think on many a glorious scene 

"Which graced thy hills and vallies green; 

Think on Malachi the brave; , >$l_ 

Look on Brian's verdant grave — / //Z0~t£s 

Brian — the glory and grace of his age; 

Brian — the shield of the emerald isle; 
The lion incensed was a lamb to his rage; 

The dove was an eagle compared to his smile! 
Tribute on enemies, hater of war, 

Wide-flaming sword of the warrior throng, 
Liberty's be'acon, religion's bright star, 

Soul of the seneacha, " light of the song." ^p 

The sun has grown" old since Clontarf's bloody 

wave 
Saw thee sleep the sweet sleep of the patriot brave; 
But thy glory still infantine beams from on high, 
The light of our soil and the sun of our sky; 
And, centuries hence, Time shall see that sweet 

light, 
Unheeding his envy, still youthful and bright! 



THE EMERALD ISLE. J 3 

Oh! bad I the power, holy scourge of the Dane, 
To waken the glories that circled thy reign, 

The captive would triumph, the tyrant should 
die; 
Yet, alas! to the angels above 'tis but given, 
While chanting the vesper of heroes at even, 
To pause at thy name 'mid the music of heaven, 

And shed the mute tear on thy memory! 
Oh! there were days in the Island of Saints 3 

No bard could dare to sing, 
Holy deeds, which the pen that paints 

Must come from an angel's wing! 

It is not now for an impious time 

The hallowed tale to tell, 
Of sacred lore and song sublime, 
And learning, spread through many a clime, 

By the tongue of Columbkille! 2s 

It is not now for a downward age, 

Or the feeble hand that writes, 
To dim, with his degenerate page, 
The wisdom meek and martial rage 

Of Conn of the hundred fights! 1/ fartL 

It is not now for the spiritless song, 

Or the tame and tuneless lyre, 
To tell of the wondering crowds that hung 
On the hero hand and poet tongue 

Of Cormac— heart of firei 2 



14 THE EMERALD ISLE. 

The days are gone and the bards are dead 

That well could tell the tale, 
Like the flower of the valley they flourished, and 
fled 

Like the song of the mountain gale. 

Where now the passing stranger sees 

Some orphan tree 
Sighing in the desert breeze, 

So piteously — 
There once the holy druid prayed, 

Amid his stately grove, 
Or sweetly breathed the myrtle shade, 
As courtly knight and lady strayed, 

In ecstasy of love. 
It is not for the earthly soul 

These hallowed sights to see, 
But, bursting from its sable shrouds, 
Like lightning from the midnight clouds, 
The buried age will rise and roll 
Before the child of poesy. 

Arise, arise, thou vision bright! 
Arise and glorify my sight! 
Pour down thy radiance from on high; 
Glance but upon mine youthful eye, 
One glimpse of Erin's faded majesty! 



THE EMERALD ISLE. i& 

Rise, visions of our golden age! 

And flash your glories on my page! 

Rise, ancient heroes of our isle! 

And cheer your country with a smile! 

Rise, shades of the departed years! 

Rise, sages, bards, and holy seers! 

Usher, Swift, and Farquhar come 

From your star-encircled home!— 

See, see the vision passing by, 

See how it glows along the sky, 

A grand eternal galaxy! 

Poor Erin, though surrounding night 

May make that galaxy more bright, 

Still hast thou hope some happy star 

AVill lead in Morning's lucid car; 

For, even in this moment drear, 

Such splendid prodigies appear, 

That one must think their heavenly ray 

The promise of returning day, — 

See thy laurel-circled son 

Leading crimson Conquest on — 

See how India comes from far, 

And looks on Lusitania's war — 

See how she waves her banner proud* $ 

And claps her hands and cries aloud, 

" Yield, Europe, half his fame to md 

" I nursed the child of Victory . M — 



16 THE EMERALD ISLE. 

Happy chief! upon whose head 
Contending climes their honours shed! 
Happy chief! whose sword has won 
A title nobler than a throne, 
The station-saving Wellington! 

And does not he — oh! write the name 
In characters of living flame — 
Does not Sheridan refuse 
The gift of every stranger muse; 
Bringing, with filial love, to thee, 
The glories of his poverty? 
Still showing others wisdom's way, 
Still led himself, by wit, astray; 
Of contradictions, so combined, 
With views so brilliant, yet so blind, 
That in him error looks like truth, 
Folly is reason, age is youth. 

Immortal man! designed to be 
The country's oivn epitome; 
When thy keen flashes set no more 
The midnight table in^ywar, 
Sages and wits alikqflj^Kcome 
To heap the garlands^ffthy tomb, 
And every weeping muse, in turn, 
Clasp in her arms her favourite's urn! 



THE EMERALD ISLE. \t 

E'en from that urn shall rise relief, 

Glory will so illumine grief: 

Thus when the radiant orb of day * 

Sheds on the world its parting" ray, 

The lustre all creation cheers, 

And orphan Nature smiles in tears. 

Nor, Grattan, may'st thou stand' aside 

When Erin counts her cause of pride! 

Thou, thou who in her darkest night, 

Rose, like a meteor, on her sight, 

When a native traitor's blow 

Laid thy lovely Erin low. 

Oh! round that last ill-omined field, 

Where her high heart was forced to yield, 

When in its wrath the midnight cloud 

Rolled its thunder-laden shroud, 

Burning through storm and cloud, thy beam 

Shot on her eye a loftier gleam: 

Cheered her sunk heart, and bid her feel 

That virtue might be conqueror still. 

E'en, when the remnant of the fight, 

Her warriors, scorning chains or flight, 

Though dim their spear s^fctleft their shield^ 

Hung on the limits of the field; 

They watched upon the clo^Bar 

The radiance of thy guiding star; 

Radiance so grand, so pure, 'twas given 

To brighten earth, and show them heaven— 






18 THE EMERALD ISLE. 

That heaven, Kirwan, which sent thee 
On earth to show its purity; 
But which, enamoured of thy tongue, 
Refused the blessing to us long; 
And Virtue now holds out to men 
The hope of hearing thee again. 
Apostle worthy of thy God! 
Like him, a thorny path you trod, 
Shedding thine high and holy grace 
Upon a worthless, thankless race! 
Blush, mitred Dulness, blush with shame. 
At Kirwan*s great neglected name. & 
But who is here with olive crowned, 
With Echo listening for a sound, 
And all the passions bending round? 
Ecstatic Mirth and stern Despair 
Owning alike their master there! 
Whose is the wonder-working wand 
That conjures up the shadowy band — 
Bids sorrow, shame, and rapture start 
From the recesses of the heart; 
Calls the quick tear to Joy's blue eye, 
Alternate wakes thejj||e and sigh; 
And reigns, witl™ Hnd proud control, 
Unrivalled sovereiJ| Br the soul? 
Curran, now I know thee well; 
I know thee by thy potent spell: 



THE EMERALD ISLE. 19 

; But hence without applause from me; 
I may not worship witchery.— 
Yet sure if aught of magic art, 
With secret sway, enslaves the heart, 
'Tis when lovely woman's smile 
Resistless wings the fatal wile: 
Yet vain the hope, the effort vain 
To 'scape the soft and silken chain; 
Xor can the captive muse repine 
A willing slave at Edgeworth's shrine. 
Edge worth! a parent's and a nation's pride! 
Virtue's chaste guardian, Erin's virgin guide! 
Star of thy sex! round whom, on airy wing, 
Each grace meanders, and the muses sing, 
Wisdom expands, Wit's varied vision plays, 
Genius careers, while eagle Fancy strays, 
Prometheus like, in envy 'mid the blaze! 
Yes, if this earth can yield a ray divine, 
And heaven's pure sun with human shade combine, 
'Tis when, enshrined within a female fc>rm, 
Genius and virtue bear the blended charm; 
They soften life, ameliorate their sphere, 
In joy adorn, and in misfdB^echeer, 
Beam round their orb antlH Hft bliss, 
And half unfold a future staJMn this. 
Happy the bard such union to reveal, 
But happier thou, fair Owenson, to feel' *y 



20 THE EMERALD ISLE. 

Hail, Justice! maid austere but mild, 
Hail to thy pure and patriot child! 
Oh! vain would be the poet's lay, 
And faint and feeble memory's ray, 
And cold thy country's heart must be, 
When she forgets her Ponsonby! 
While modest worth ancNmanly mind, 
With honour's spotless soul combined, 
While wisdom meek and honest zeal, 
The hand to act, the heart to feel, 
Claim, from this land, a tribute free, 
She'll not forget her Ponsonby. 

But see who comes with careless measure, 

Looking bliss and breathing pleasure, 

Led along by Beauty's choir, 

With heart of feather, tongue of fire, 

A cupid carrying his lyre! » 

'Tis he, the bard of voice divine, 

Sweet melodist of love and wine; 

He on whom monks and minions rail, 

The muse's little nightingale: — 

Yes, Erin, 'tis thy Paltffet son, 

Thy simple, sweea^Hfreon! 

Moore, though arSBtt thy laurelled head 

No splendid ray can shine, 
Save that which heaven's own light will shed 

On such a brow as thine — 



• 



THE EMERALD ISLE. 21 

♦ 

Yet, when you die, 

Genius will grieve upon thy tomb, 

Freedom lament thy early doom, 

And fresh in Erin's fond heart bloom 

The verdure of thy memory! 

Thy dirge shall be the lover's sigh; 

Thy monument the myrtle tree; 
While widowed Nature, weeping nigh, 

Shall close her poet's obsequy. 
Nor shall one tear less sacred fail 

Upon the grave of worth, 
Because unblazoned is its pall, v 

And titleless its birth — 

Away, away, the herald's scorn, 
Full many a noble heart was humbly born! 
'Mid the heath of the valley the violet blows; 
Through the sands of the desert the fountain-spring 

flows; 

And e'en on the briar-bush blossoms the rose, 
With the breath and the beauty of morn. 

Take the lyre, thou child of song! 
But keep it not from Cupidjong; 
Yet can the god of love refa 
A moment of his darling mus 
To celebrate a land which pays 
To him such pure and pious praise- 



22 THE EMERALD ISLE, 

To celebrate, in deathless strain, 

Its honour, without spot or stain, 

Its spirit brave, its social glee, 

Its beauteous hospitality — 

Its fire, and mirth, and martial fame 

Concentered all in Moira's name? 

Yes! if in human hearts there be 

A symbol of the Deity, 

A feeling of celestial birth, 

Which raises man above the earth, 

Ennobles life, and death defies, 

And wings our spirit for the skies, 

Moira, 'tis that which gives to thee 

The patriot's immortality — 

It lends thy star a ray more bright, 

Sheds on thy name a purer light, 

And gives thee, more than wit or birth, 

The meed of honesty and worth. 

In faith it glads my heart to say 

That even in thy winter day, 

There is a patriot pure and free, 

To think, poor Erin, upon tliee — 

To sweep, with angel hand, aside 

The lures of luxury and pride; 

And, great in alflB world can give, 

Alone for thee contented live. 

Yet, Erin, few there surely are, 

And oh! be these from memory far, 



THE EMERALD ISLE. 23 

Who do not love to think on thee 
And the pure joys of infancy. 
No matter where the exile goes, 
O'er sultry sands or Alpine snows, 
Or where no mortal foot before 
Had dared the desert to explore; 
Where wild tornadoes pour their wrath, 
Or serpents hiss along his path: 
At night, when, wearied and alone, 
He rests upon the shapeless stone, 
E'en o'er that broken hour of sleep 
Delicious thoughts of home will sweep, 
And his hushed spirit give a tear 
To all that charmed and soothed it there: 
The hazel wood, the village green, 
Of his rude boyish sports the scene — 
The woodbine bower, the hawthorn glade, 
W r here first he met his mountain maid; 
With all the loves of that sweet soil 
Where friendship gave a charm to toil, 
And Mirth lent Poverty a smile. 

Dear native land, though distant now, 
The days when, o'er thy mountain's brow, 
With footstep light and spirit gay, 
I brushed the morning/ view away, 
Or paused to mark the rural grave 
Where sleep the ashes of the brave — 



24 The emerald isle. 

Still ever dear shall be the scene, 
Though savage oceans roll between; 
Still shalt thou be my midnight dream, 
Thy glory still my waking theme; 
And every thought and wish of mine, 
Unconquered Erin, shall be thine! « 



Oh! had I but the envied power 
To sing thy brighter, earlier hour, 
Then would I sing the happy day 
Wliich saw thee reign with regal sway: 
Then would I sing thine age of gold, 
Thy virgins bright and heroes bold: 
And every trump should sound their fame, 
And every tongue should bless their name, 
And every flower should droop its head, 
And on their tomb its odour shed: 
But to no human tongue 'tis given 
To use the privilege of heaven. 
Celestial beings chant their dirge, 
The sirens sing it on the surge, 
It makes the winds of heaven to sigh, 
So sweet and sad its melody. 

When evening comes, on pinion gray. 
To weep for the departed day, 
The spirits of an higher sphere 
Are sent by the Immortal here; 









THE EMERALD ISLE. 25 

They come, a seraph choir, to mourn 
Upon the hero's laurelled urn: 
And so unearthly is their song-, 
The peasant, as he goes along, 

t vents a thousand marvels dire 
o tell around his rustic fire-— 
e tells of many an elfin fay 
He saw amid the moonbeams play; 
Or, shooting through the midnight gloom, 
To guard the slumbers of the tomb! 
But yet not sprung from terror pale 
Is that poor peasant's simple tale; 
For if you rise ere early morn 
Or Echo hears the hunter's horn, 
The sylvan landscape will appear 
Glistening with many a dewy tear — 
The tears which angel eyes have shed 
In sorrow for the sacred dead. 
But, to see the hallowed sight, 
You must steal an hour from night: 
For so divine the tears that grace 
The hero's sacred resting place, 
That, when the sun with vision bright, 
Beholds them glittering in the light, 
He sends, by heaven's own desire, 
A ray of his celestial ure 
To kiss the heathbell's weeping cup, 
And drink the pearly odour up. 



26- THE EMERALD ISLE. 

Yet, Goldsmith, Orpheus of the wild! 
Nature's own darling village child, 
Could but a patriot prayer of mine 
Draw thy sweet spirit from its shrine, 
Then might I wake the mournful tone, 
And angels think it was their own. 
Then, Burke, should thy immortal form 
Arise, majestic, 'mid the storm, 
As when fair Justice saw thee stand 
With client nations at thy hand, 
While wealth, and rank, and beauty hung 
Upon the magic of thy tongue! 

Oh! 'twas a noble sight to see 
How talent shadowed pedigree; 

And thou, poor orphan of the sod, 

Proved thy nobility from God! 

And Berkely, thou, in vision fair, 

With all the spirits of the air, 

Shouldst come to see, beyond dispute, 

Thy deathless page thyself refute; 

And in it own that thou couldst view 

Matter — and it immortal too. 

And Wit, and Comedy, and Love, 

Should come with Congreve from above; 

And Swift, the wonder of the age: 

Statesman, yet patriot; priest, yet sage; 

Who sought the mob, admired the crown, 

And shamed the church, yet graced the gown. 



THE EMERALD ISLE. 27 

Impassioned without love or fear, 
Witty, yet solemn and severe; 
So much at war his word and deed, 
Antithesis was stil^his creed: 
And sure the life must love inspire, 
Where all find something to admire. 
Fond of the nation he disowned, 
Still on her hour of hope he frowned; 
But, when her hour of struggle came* 
And Ireland half embraced her shame, 
Then was his hour — the champion rose, 
Terror alike of friends and foes; 
Unarmed, save in the mighty zeal 
His country forced his heart to feel; 
In shame, and pnde, and sorrow strong, 
The scornful patriot rushed along, 
Like lightning on the slumberer's eyes, 
Flashing his glorious energies — 
Nor did the noble ardour die, 
Till Ireland could her foes defy; 
And its last fierce indignant ray 
Vanished amid the blaze of day; 
Then, then his native soul returned, 
And e'en the soil he saved he spurned! 
To friendship and to feeling- dear, 
Immortal Sterne should next appear, 
With Cupid gaily running after, 



28 THE EMERALD ISLE. 

Encircled in a myrtle crown, 
And covered with a cleric gown, 
The jest of jollity and laughter. 

Thou, magic Spenser, shouldst be seen, /d 

Ranging the fairies on the green, 

To tell them how, one winter night, 

When moon and stars refused their light, 

And not a sprite could vigil keep, 

You stole upon their sovereign's sleep, 

And took a wand of wonder dread, 

"Which gave a charm to all you said! 

Nor shouldst thou, Farquhar, absent be, 4rWi 

Child of wit, p.nd soul of glee! 

Swan of the stage! whose dying moan 

Such dulcet numbers poured along, 
That Death grew captive at the tone, 

And staid his dart to hear the song! 

Source of refined and rational delight, 
Through joy to virtue see the stage invite. 
Amusing moralist! whose splendid art, 
Seriously gay, amends and sooths the heart, 
With willing homage at thy shrine I bow, 
To pay the humble, but the grateful vow. 

Long had the rival muses urged their claim 
To the green garland of poetic fame: 



THE EMERALD ISLE. 29 

High and superb, upon her throne of fire, 

The tragic sister swept her living lyre; 

While, at the call of their commanding queen, 

Th' embodied passions rushed into the scene, 

Fear, Anger, Frenzy strain their aching eyes, 

As Mossop rages and Fitzhenry dies. 

What heart but bleeds, while Cato smiles in tears, 

And sire and patriot in Quin appears? 

Who, with a soul, can nature's pang endure 

While Barry trembles in the tortured Moor; 

And see, for ages shaded from our view,; 

Maclin give life to the revengeful Jew? 

Fired at the sight, Melpomene arose, 

Smiled on the scene, and half forgot her woes; 

Sure of success, she viewed the victor train, 

And hailed the glories of her rising reign. 

Clive and Comedy came together, 
Waving wild their wand of feather, 
Round and round the antic throng, 
Led along 
By their airy song. 
Lewis, linked with Ease and Laughter, 
Beckoning Humour lingering after, 
Half willing, half afraid to fly, 
And lose the light of Jordan's eye; 
Jordan still, with airy glee, 
Wheeling round Euphrosyne, 






30 THE EMERALD ISLE. 

Robbing now her rosy wreath, 
Catching* now her balmy breath; 
Little loves and graces bound her, 
Sylphs on airy wing surround her: 
Her printless footsteps fresh luxuriance fling, 
And flowers and perfumes breath eternal spring! 
Lulled by the magic of her honied strain, 
The rival muses owned th' alternate reign, 
With mutual feeling each their feuds forsook, 
Combined their efforts and created Cooke. 
Lord of the soul, magician of the heart, 
Pure child of Nature, fosterchild of Art, 
How all the passions in succession rise, 
Heave in thy soul and lighten in thine eyes! 
Beguiled by thee, old Time, with aspect blithe, 
Leans on his sceptre and forgets his sithe; 
Space yields its distance; ancient glories live, 
Ages elapse; remotest scenes revive; 
For thee Creation half inverts her reign, 
And captive Reason wears a willing chain. 



But, hark to that strain of delight in the sky, 
Winging the breeze with its melody! 
With what magic it floats on the incense of even! 
How sweetly it softens the chorus of heaven! 
Hark! — is it a strain from some spirit of fire, 
0r the sweet swelling echo of Albany's lyre? /"• 






THE EMERALD ISLE. 31 

Perhaps 'tis the welcome of bliss to the brave, 
Or an anthem of love from the maid of the wave; 
Or it may be the song 1 of a sinner forgiven! 
Alas! 'tis not long since that heavenly strain 
Awoke all its echoes, but woke them in vain; 
Like the harp of the winter we hung it in air, 
And smiled on the shivering song of despair. 
Oh heaven! was it meet, on a pitiless shore, 
" No parent to cherish, or friend to deplore," 
Ere the peach-down of infancy faded its bloom, 
Sweet Poesy's child should descend to the tomb, 

Unprotected and poor? 
Was there none in the circle of fashion's career? 
No singular spendthrift in folly's gay sphere? 
No penitent Croesus from India's domain? 
No mitre, embarrassed with sinecure gain? " 
No patriot pensioned— no Walpole in place, 
Who prompted, perhaps, to astonish his race, 
Would, from vanity outwards, or conscience within, 
Save the orphan of genius from sorrow and sin? 
But though cheered by no solace and sunned by 

no ray, 
This world's dreary winter has withered away, 

With many a sigh — 
There are some to thy evergreen grave who will 

bring 
The fragrance of summer and flowrets of spring*, 



32 THE EMERALD ISLE. 



And weeping thy late, but sad, requiem sing 1 , / $ 
, Poor Dermody! 

Crowned by a bright sunbeam, and shrouded in 
storm, 
With a sigh for the present and smile on the 
past, 
The meteors of heaven unveiling his form, 

The spirit of Ossian should ride on the blast- 
On! when he awoke his wild harp of the mountain, 
Or shed the sweet light of his slumbering song, 
How the moss -covered rock, with its crystalline 
fountain, 
Would pour forth the bodiless, magical throng, 
To catch but one cadence and boast it along! 
How the holy sound 
Would call around 
The vision of former years! 
The virgins bright, 
In their mantles of light, 
Would forget the virgin's fears; 
And the fire-edged cloud, 
Show its warrior crowd 
Careering their airy spears. 
* Full many a day 

Has rolled away, 
Since they heard that tuneful tongue, 



THE EMERALD ISLE. 33 

And many a sword 
Has lost its lord, 
Since simple Ossian sung. 

The pride of his string 
Were a rural race, 
Their solace the spring, 

Their subsistence the chase; 
And they lay down to rest 

From their frugal repast, 
Content should Fate bring 
A rude cairn at last! /^ 
Sure 'tis a sad, yet soothing sight, 

To view the desert scene, 
Where once the sword, in Freedom's fight, 
Waved from countless warriors bright, 
Each shooting, like a star of night, 

His splendour o'er the green. 
When tired at eve, the pilgrim leans 

Upon some rocky pile, 
Of days long gone the lone remains, 
Saved by their rudeness from the Vandal reigns, 
Which, red and ruthless, swept the plains 

Of this' ill-fated isle. 
He little thinks the mossy stones 

Beneath his feet, 
Afford some hero's hallowed bones 
Their cold retreat — 
b 2 



34 THE EMERALD ISLE. 

Once saw the pomp of mourning pride, 

And heard the virgin's sigh 
Swelling the sweet and solemn tide 

Of ancient minstrelsy! 
Perhaps, e'en there, on Fingal's arm /<y 

A thousand heroes hung, 
While Ossian, music of the storm, 

The battle anthem sung; — 
Or there (Emania's palace rose, //> 

In more than regal pride, 
Ollam inhaled a nation's woes, // 
Conn's fiery sceptre crushed her foe?, 

Or noble Oscar died. / f 

Alas! for thee, Erin, gone by is thy fame, 
Foi gotten thy glories and blasted thy name; 
And thou standst, like a tree, by the lightning's 
flame, 
Of vigour and verdure and promise bereft; 
And, as if to enhance, while they solace, thy shame, 
The tombs of thy fathers are all thou hast left. 
Yet the spot where their ashes now sleep, in the 
shade, 
May one day relume faded Liberty's fire, 
The vow of the brave be triumphantly paid, 
And his sword, a bright homage, with reverence 
laid 
At the shrine of its impulse, the tomb of his 
sire! 



THE EMERALD ISLE. 35 

Though 'twere treason to speak it, yet still in our 
blood, 

The flame of our fathers shall glow, 
At once, the bright hope of a better abode, 

And the ray of this prison below. 
As weary and sad, bv the winter- wind driven, 

The tempest-tossed mariner sees from afar, 
Smiling its peace on the turbulent heaven, 

The mild beaming light of some glimmering 
star: 
Thus, Erin, though tempest thy triumph enshrouds, 
And Night rolls around thee her car of the clouds, 
No darkness shall dim thee, no tempests affright, 
While thou seest in the heavens thy father's sweet 

light; 

3 Mid the gloom of the storm that clear light shall 

arise; 
The light of the brave, of the good, and the wise; 
Through tempests still lucid, through centuries 
young, 
And thou, native Ossian, long gladden our eyes, 
Though Scotia, unfilial, the solace denies, /I 
Swee£ bard of tradition! bright beacon of song! 

Nor shouldst thou, youthful shade, unsung remain, 
Though kings denounced and bigots cursed the 
strain; 



36 THE EMERALD ISLE. 

Thou, whose rich bud just breathed upon the land, 
Blushed on our crimes, and bowed beneath their 

hand. 
Ah, why, thou pure, soul-breathing floweret of 
May! 
Did you spring in our climate of storm? 
Some holier land, and some happier day, 
Would have opened its bosom, and brightened its 

ray, 
To chase every pestilent phantom away, 

That frighted thy lily form! 
And in time thou wouldst pour, sweetest blossom 
of spring, 
Such balm-breathing gratitude there, 
That the wild bird would come by thy beauties to 

sing, 
And shed, as he passed, from his odorous wing, 

All Araby's fabled air! 
Though cold in the desert thy relics repose, 

'Mid the shriek of the winter blast, 
Like flame in our heart's blood thy martyrdom 
glows, 
And will while memory last. 
And yet the wild heath-bell that sighs in the wind, 

As it shadows the patriot's grave, 
Is dearer by far to the sensitive mind, 
Than the marble enshrining a slave. 



THE EMERALD ISLE. 37 

It was meet, youthful shade, for a barbarous age, 
To squander, with bloody and bigotted rage, 

The glories of genius away: 
But, like mist on the mountain, the cloud shall be 

driven, 
When the orbit eclipsed will career throughout 
heaven, 
The light of a purer day! 

JLo! by the sod where classic Barry sleeps, ^JV 

Genius, low bend ; ng, droops the wing and weeps; 

No shadows afloat — no sounds awaken there, 

Save the sweet sigh of the surrounding air, 

Or purer accent of some angel's prayer: 

While heaven's bright bow, with orient ray serene, 

Sweeps its high arch, and consecrates the scene. 

Oh thou! to whose pure glance was given, 
While yet on earth, the opening heaven; 
Though, in thine own elysium placed, 
With circling saints and heroes graced, 
Whether, with glance of fire you fling 
Young roses on Aurora's wing, 
Or circle Iris, in her flight, 
With Fancy's gayest robe of light, 
Or deck at eve th' autumnal sky, 
all its rich variety — 



mail* 



38 THE EMERALD ISLE. 

Refuse not thou one summer smile 

Upon the lonely western isle, 

Where first, around thy infant head, 

The sun its loveliest shadows shed, 

And nature blessed thy early view 

With every rich and varied hue, 

That decks the rose, or prisms the morning dew! 

Wooed from his silent rustic tomb, 
The shade of Carolan should come, £{ 
And see his harp of music hung 

Upon some hoary hawthorn tree, 
And hear the little robin's tongue, 

Learning its plaintive melody: 
While every warbler brings its young, 
To hear the lovely vesper sung, 
t And round the choir the fairies play, 
And dance their magic roundelay; 
Till the last breath of parting even, 

Sweet and slowly floating by, 
Carries the concert up to heaven, 

All fragrance and all harmony. 
Soft as the murmuring winds \hat shake 

The dew-drop from the woodbine spray, 
Soft as the airs that stir the lake, 

At the rich solemn close of day, 

Is Carolan's bewitching lay. 






THE EMERALD ISLE* 39 

But cease, my soul, the effort vain, 

Nor venture such a sacred strain: 

Yet oh! my country, could I throw 

One gleam of comfort on thy wo, 

The holy solace should be heard, 

Though fate itself should wing the word. 

Dear country! if my counsel light, 

A shepherd's whistle in the night, 

Might claim a reverence from thee, 

Though but for its sincerity — 

I'd tell thy injured honoured land, 

In patient dignity to stand; 

But oh! from thee and thine be far 

The rashness of a rebel war! 

How often, in my school-boy day, 

Have I renounced the school -boy's play, 

To wander lonely o'er thy green, 

And see again some favourite scene; 

Or up thy emerald hills to roam, 

And watch the curling smoke of home; 

Or think upon the mother dear, 

Who then on me was thinking there; 

Or ask the peasant, as he toiled, 

And, happy at my fancy, smiled, 

If he thought the ocean bold, 

Which awfully beneath us rolled, 

Ever saw such fruits and flowers, 

Such mountains, fields, and mossy bowers, 



40 THE EMERALD ISLE.. 

Or such a lovely land as ours? 
Oh then it joyed my heart to see 
The patriot son of industry, 
Hold out to me his rugged hand, 
And swear, not such another land 
Our sovereign had at his command: 
Or give me half his scanty store, 
And sorrow that he had no more. 
Then would he, in his simple way, 
Along the neighbouring valley stray, 
To tell me all that surge had seen, 
And all the glories of that green, 
III Erin's elder day: jl £ 
Alas! where once the palace rose, 

And, spread its gales, the festal bower, 
There now the desert hawthorn blows, 

Or, browsing on the woodbine flower, 
The red deer fearless stray! 
That spot where, as the sunset threw 
On wood and lake its purpling hue, 
The harp and horn both sounded high 
The call of graceful revelry. 
Now nought is heard but, shrill and harsh, 
The bittern booming in the marsh, 
Or the lone shepherd's shout of fear, 
To fright the savage prowling near. 
Now all is featureless and lone, 

Save where, upon the heathy ground, 



THE EMERALD ISLE. 41 

Lie the huge heaps of printless stone, 
By time and tempest scattered round. 

Bleaching in the mountain blast, 

And mouldering in the mountain rain, 

The symbol of the ages past, 

The ruins frown in proud disdain, 2 & 

Casting their chill and mournful shade 

Upon the spot, where low are laid 

Their mighty chiefs and warrior men, 

Their murdered friends and heroes slain, 

And all the trophies of their glorious reign! 

Gone are the days when the western gale 
Awoke every voice of the lake and the vale, 

With the harp, and the lute, and the lyre; 
When Justice uplifted her adamant shield, 
And Valour and Freedom illumined the field 

With a sword and a plumage of fire! 
Gone are the days when our warriors brave 
Bounded the surge of the ocean wave; 
When the chief of the hills held his banner of 

green, 
And the shamrock and harp on that banner were 

seen, 
As the pastoral hero assembled his band, 
To lead them to war, at his monarch's command- 
Yes, his own native monarch, unfettered and free 
As the wild bird that perched on his mountain 
tree-— 



42 THE EMERALD ISLE. 

Ah! where are that monarch and mountain tree 

now? ^ 

And where is the wild bird that perched on its 

bough? 
The wild bird's feather now wings the dart 
That drinks the red blood of the hero's heart; 
The monarch has fall'n, and the mountain tree 
Bears Erin's hope o'er the distant sea! 
But, Erin, you never had mourned the sight, 
Had you brandished your spear in your own good 

fight: 
Had you boldly stood on your mountain crag 
And waved o'er the valley your sea green flag, 
Soon, soon, should the stranger have found his 

grave 
Beneath the red foam of the ocean wave: 
And the stranger's fate should be told by the 

gore 
Of the stranger's corse on his native shore! 
Bui he came not in arms, and our generous isle, 
Unheeding his sword was betrayed by his 6mile! 

Yet fraud or force attempt in vain 

To sway the patriot's ardent soul, 
Proudly it vindicates its reign, 
Crumbles the tyrant's impious chain, 

And soars sublime above control' 



THE EMERALD ISLE. 

A moment paused the heart of fire* 

That knew not to deceive, 
More in compassion than in ire, 
O'er human guilt to grieve. 
A moment fell the pious tear, 
To parted freedom given: 
Not on a darling parent's bier 
Could infant eyes shed drops more dear 

Than that, to heaven. 
The patriot's bosom panted high 

As grief's soft image died, 
And blushing, on his frenzied eye, 
Rose Erin's injured pride. 
Roused at the sight, the mountaineer, 

With ready hand, 
Seized his artless rustic spear; 
Throughout the land, 
The rock and the glen 
Sent their warrior men 
To the patriot field; 
And the side of the hill, 
As it shone o'er the rill, 

Seemed a living shield! 
At the bugle's shrill breath 

The stag, in affright, 
Shot over his heath, 

Like an arrow of lights 



44 THE EMERALD ISLE. 

Our isle was awake, 
From the bray to the brake, 
At the summons of war; 
And the spears of the brave,^^ 

From the' summits afar, 
Crested the wave, 

Like a shooting star! 
If humanity shows to the God of the world, 

A sight for his fatherly eye, 
'Tis that of a people with banner unfurled* 

Resolved for their freedom to die. 
'Tis a spark of the Deity bursting to light, 

Through the darkness of human control, 
That fires the bold war-arm in liberty's fight, 
And flames from the patriot, burning and bright, 

Through the eye of a heavenly soul. 
Oh' was it not noble and fair to behold 

Our isle, like a warrior, laced, 
With her spear of the hills and her buckler bolc^ 
Her banner of green and her helm of gold, 2^r 
Stand ready for battle braced? 

The sun on that day, 
Sent h/S holiest ray, 
To brighten the patriot plume; 
The shamrock was seen 
With a lovelier green, 
And the air shed a sweeter perfumje. 



THE EMERALD ISLE. 45 

The face of our isle 

Wore a heavenly smile, 
As if conscious and proud of her brave, 

And the laurel flower, 

At that holy hour, 
Bowed its bloom o'er the warrior's grave, 

To tell him the land 

He had died to defend, 
Was no- longer the ■home of a slave. 

No, there is not a spot where the pious are laid, 

But an angel is hovering near, 
To guard their high slumber and gladden their 
shade, 

With the triumph of purity here; 
And Nature on that angel eye 
Still casts a glance of sympathy. 

Ye sainted spirits of the air, 
..To whose angelic guardian care 

The patriot's cause was given, 
Oh, on the memory of that day, 
Beam down the purest holiest ray 

That glows in heaven! 
And thou, lamented honoured sire, 

Too early lost for Erin's fame, 
Pour from on high thy hallowed fire, 



46 THE EMERALD ISLE. 

And purge away thy country's shame; 
Prison of islands — land without a name! 

Leinster, if birth alone had made thee great, 

Nor worth confirmed the ordinance of fate; 

If midst the titled rabble thou hadst stood 

A lie to rank, a ridicule on blood, 

Content to shine amongst a shameless band, 

The gilded robber of thy native land, 

Thou shouldst have gone to time's remotest age, 

The blot and burthen of the poet's page; 

Thy vice immortal, thy enjoyment o'er, 

Verdant in shame when thou couldst sin no more! 

'Tis the high mission of the muse's choir 

To soar through ether on a wing of fire, 

Shed round the humble saint their holy ray, 

And circle guilt with an eternal day: 

They beam on virtue its immortal grace, 

They blast the wreath of the successful base, 

Roll their high spheres harmoniously along, 

Stars in their course, and sirens in their song! 

Leinster, when traitors stained the robe of power,/ 

When ermined tyrants ruled their little hour, 

W hen guilt was greatness, and corruption wealth 

And sacred piety an act of stealth— 

'Twas thine to vindicate the claim of birth, 

Show that e'en still a noble might have worth, 



THE EMERALD ISLE. 4tl 

And prouder dignities than dukedoms "prove 
In the heart's homage of thy country's love. 
Patriot, thou art not gone — thy holy name 
Still from our hills a beacon light shall flame! 

Devouring fate may close the bad man's doom, 
Crumble the throne or crush the pompous tomb, 
But virtue bruised exhales a purer breath, 
Sighs fragrance forth, and triumphs over death. 
Thus some proud oak high shoots its stately form, 
Blooms in the blast and strengthens in the storm, 
Pride and protection of its native glade, 
The winter's grandeur and the summer's shade!— 
When all its verdant lymours shrink with age 
And leave it shieldless to the tempest's rage., 
The hoary sovereign revives his reign, 
Breasts the high wave and bounding o'er the main, 

Still mocks the storm and still defends the plain. 

I 

Celestial vision of that sacred day, 
Blush down thy grace and beautify my way. 
From shapeless ruins and a dreary wild, 
Where once the harvest of the hamlet smiled, 
From foreign pride and native folly, free, 
My wearied spirits seek repose in thee. 
Proudly the glories of thy reign I view, 
Hang o'er the scene and every charife renew; 



48 THE EMERALD ISLE. 

Fancy again the patriot banner sees 

Wave mid the music of the mountain breeze; 

Again beholds rejoicing commerce ride, 

Free as the winds that waft her o'er the tide, 

Or sighs, entranced, where once in truth she hung 

On the sweet tone of Flood's harmonious tongue. 27 

Thou, mystic pile! our glory and our shame! 
Ray of our pride and ruin of our name! 
Where are the days when pure thy patriots rose 
To raise our greatness and redress our woes; 
When Grattan thundered round thy ample dome, 
And patriot genius found a kindred home; 
When silver Burgh poured on the nation's ear^# 
Strains such as Athens had been wont to hear; 
While smiling Erin claimed thee for her own, 
And Reason hailed her decorated throne! 

Alas! where once uprose the temple's porch, 
And holy breathings woke the altar's torch, 
Where patriot tongues their sacred music poured, 
Now heartless traders heap their sordid hoard! 
Rapine exulting spreads her impious spoil, 
And withered Avarice affects a smile! 
But ceace> indignant heart, lament no more; 
Let trade reign still where triumphed trade before 
The time must come when Heaven's avenging hand 
Shall smite the dome and vindicate the land, 



THE EMERALD ISLE. £9 

Showing 1 its pillared pride in ruins hurled, 

A wonder and a warning to the world. 

Britain beware — nor vainly think that he, 

Faithless to us, can e'er be true to thee. 

When conscience, country, kindred plead in vain, 

Dragged, all dishonoured, to the shrine of gain — 

Can foreign climes assume a dearer claim? 

Can alien sighs awake the patriot flame? 

Believe it not — the traitor's impious soul 

Blasphemes at grace and banishes control; 

It loathes all nurture but the fruit of crime; 

It counts by guilty deeds the course of time, 

Sees hell itself but as the idiot's rod; 

Deifies guilt and mortgages its God! 

Heavens! when T see this lovely soil, 
The tyrant's sport, the bigot's spoil, 
Contending furies shake my frame; 
Fevered with rage, revenge, and shame, 
1 call on Mercy's self to fly, 
Armed with the sword of Destiny, 
And sweep away the murderous brood, 
Carousing on my country's blood, 
Who spurn the path a Saviour trod, 
To bend before a party god. 

Too long has meek Religion bled 
Beneath the Christian hand, 




50 THE EMERALD ISLE. 

Too long has persecution shed 
Its poison through the land. 

Oh! if no tongue of holy grace 
Should bid the lawless tempest cease, 
Let suppliant Erin's voice be heard, 
Though weak her tongue, yet wise her word, 
The word of peace. 

Think, think, sons of Erin, on all we have lost, 

Oh! think on our former pride; 
Then unite and be free, nor relinquish the boast 

For which our brave ancestors died. 
Remember the glory and pride of your name, 
Ere the cold-blooded Sassenach tainted your fame, 
When merit was fortune, for virtue was power, 
And Reason, not Bigotry, guided the hour. 
Though now all dreary and decayed 

Our ancient glories lie, 
Some blessed spirits love their shade, 

And guard their memory. 
Tread but the spot, though barren now, 
Where meek Religion's angel-vow, 

In pious hope, was poured; 
Or stray along the desert heath, 
Where Genius sighed its parting breath, 
Or martyred Virtue smiled on death, 

Or Valour waved the sword — 



THE EMERALD ISLE. 51 

Though want and wildness reign around, 
Nor earth give soil, nor echo sound, 
An awe upon the heart will steal, 
And conscious Nature's instinct feel 

'Tis holy ground. 
Is there within the isle a soul 
But owns the sad sublime control, 
As oft, by patriot impulse led, 
To where Kinkora's palace shed J J 

Its splendours on the flood; 
Or Clonmacnoise upreared its head £# 

Amid the sacred wood, 
Or— oh! forever be the name 
Circled with glory's brightest flame, 

Proud Tara's temple stood? / / 

Tara, the day of thy splendour is o'er; 

Tara, the grace of thy glory is gone; 
Where thy column's high capital triumphed before 

The wind-beaten traveller sees not a stone. 
Through thy shadowless moor the night bird 

screams; 
O'er the moss of thy ruin the bright moon beams, 
While round thee chill W 7 inter his thousand streams 

Rolls cheerless and lone. 
And yet, thou pale moonbeam, there once was an 
hour 
When you strayed o'er a lovelier scene; 



52 THE EMERALD ISLE. 

As sculptured arch and antique tower, 
Blending their shade, 'mid the hawthorn bower, 
With ivyed moat and myrtle flower, 

You shadowed o'er the green. 
And yet, thou shrill ill-omined bird of the night, 

There once was an holier time, 
When the verdureless heath you now fill with af- 
fright 
Streamed with harmony's silver light; 
While the stars of peace and the swords of fight 

Cheered the harp's sweet chime — 
The heath where winter now rolls along, 

The rage of his mountain tide, 
Once saw the pride of the regal throng 
Mingle its courtly halls among, 
While sweet and wild the soul of song 
In varied echoes died. 
O Tara, but 'twas fair to see 
Thy court's assembled majesty. 
All that man deems great or grand, 

All that God made fair; 
The holy seers, the minstrel band, &-Z- 
Heroes bright and ladies bland, 
Around the monarchs of the land, 
Were mingled there. 

Alas! and shall that aged pile 
Never in ancient splendour smile? 



THE EMERALD ISLE. 53 

And shall the lonely owlet hoot 

Forever through its ivyed wall? 
And shall no more the lover's lute 

Awake the happy signal-call, 
Or grace the pleasures of its stately hall? 
Oh never! If in evil hour 

A foreign foot attaint our soil; 
Oh never! if the despot's power 

Pollutes our pure, our lovely isle. 
His aid is murder in disguise; 
His triumph freedom's obsequies; 
His faith is fraud, his wisdom guile; 
Creation withers in his smile — 
Mid ruin upon ruin hurled, 
He flames the Etna of the world. 
No offering can avert his wrath, 
No human feeling cross his path. 
See Spain in his embraces die, 
His ancient friend, his firm ally; 
See hapless Portugal, who thought 
A common creed her- safety brought — 
A common creed! alas, his life 
Has been one bloody, impious strife. 
Beneath his torch the altars burn 
And blush on the polluted urn — 
Beneath his Christian foot is trod 
The symbol of the Christian God— 



54 THE EMERALD ISLE 

The plundered fane, the murdererlpriest. 
The holy pontiff's age oppressed, 
Religion's blush and Nature's sigh 
Proclaim Napoleon's piety! 

Where'er his locust legions veer, 
Ruin and wo and want are there — 
And dreams of future murders sweep 
Across their fevered hour of sleep. 
Thus, mid the desert's cheerless blight, 
A vulture pauses in his flight, 
And on some rock's congenial breast, 
Unwilling takes his withered rest, 
Again on Rapine's wing to rise 
The taint and terror of the skies. 
Peasant of Erin, think on this, 
Encircled by domestic bliss; 
And when, with wife and children dear, 
You take your sweet though homely cheer, 
Teacli them to bless their heavenly sire 
That they enjoy their evening fire, 
And live where they can share, with thee, 
The profits of their industry. 

I love thee Erin; yet before 
The Gallic fiend should taint thy shore, 
Myself would seize the flaming brand, 
And burn the verdure of the land. 



THE EMERALD ISLE. 

h\ vain has Nature blessed our isle, 
And banished venom from its soil, 
In vain adorned our landscape green, 
With hill and vale and varied scene — 
In vain with music filled our brakes, 
With tufted islets gemmed our lakes, 
And such high mountain glories shed, 
That heaven rests upon their head — 
In vain bestowed us beauty bright, 
To grace the day and bless the night, 
If thus we trust the tempter's voice, 
And violate our paradise. £& 

A purer star ascends the sky, 
And beams its radiance from on high, 
On many a glorious trophy won, 
And many a deed of valour done, 

Adorning thy captivity! 
Sweetly it smiles, as if to say, 
Soon, soon shall dawn the rising day 

Of such a nation's liberty. 
Strange that a noble generous land, 
Enabling others to withstand 
The foreign tyrant's fierce command, 

Should not itself be free! 
Strange that a warrior, bold and brave, 
Should o'er the foe his banner wave, 
Yet reap no fruit from victory! 



56 THE EMERALD ISLE. 

No matter what the bar to fame, 
Nor how disqualified the claim, 
Erin has sent her warriors bright, 3^ 
To win the laurels of the fight, 

From him her chief and champion bold, 
Down to the simple peasant-name 
"Whose whole nobility is fame. — 
He who on Barossa's height ^ £ 
Stopped the eagle in his flight, 
And spurned its crest of gold* 

No, not a trophy of the day 

"Which Erin did not bear away. 

And see where comes the god of war, 
In his blood-emblazoned car! 
Its front of fire, its seat of steel, 
The forked lightning is its wheel; 
And see, triumphant with him, see 
The laurelled goddess, Victory! 
They pause — she waves her falchion sharp, 
Sounds Iter high horn, and leans upon the harp. 
Sudden the glories of the elder day, 
Housed at her call, in splendid vision play: 
Tradition's cloud moves slowly on her sight, 
Gemmed with the stars of legendary might; 
A smile celestial hails the laurelled train, 
Such as of old upon the battle plain, 
Beamed on their helmed heads, triumphant o'er 
the slain. 



THE EMERALD ISLE. 57 

Nor deem it strange a smile so bland 
Should greet that brave heroic band; 
For though, through time's dark vista we 
Their twinkling forms but faintly see, 
They burn as brilliantly above, 
Fanned with the breath of angels' love, 
As when they decked their distant day 

With glory's pure meridian ray. 

». 

Not Dettingen's undying name, J '& 
Nor Fontenoy's eternal fame, J?/ 
Nor e'en Cremona's classic flame, 2 & 

With purer lustre play — 
Monarchs may fall beneath their foes, 

Ages elapse, and nations die, 
But round the hero's hallowed brows. 
Pure and imperishable glows 

The halo of eternity. 
Still hovering round that vestal light, 

Angels awake their airy lyre, 
And still, to feed that vision bright, 

Th: comet rolls his flood of fire. 

Thus, Wellington, when from us here, 
'Mid many a mourning nation's tear, 
Thy glowing orb must disappear, 

It shall arise, 

In brighter skies, 
Our path to cheer; c 2 



58 THE EMERALD ISLE. 

And many a future child of war, 
Amid the battle's adverse sky > 
Shall watch afar, 
That holy star, 
Still leading on to victory; 
And he shall see that leading light, 
Girt with many a satellite; 
The heroes now who fling their shield 
Before thee in the battle field, 
When thou art gone, 
Shall guard thy throne. 

Superb on high, 
Still catch thy day, 
Reflect its ray, 
And cheer their isle 
With the bright smile 
Of constellated majesty 

Rich in hereditary fame, 
Rich in his own ennobled name, 
Rich with Egypt's garland fair, 
But richer in his country's prayer, 
'Mid trophies without envy won, 
Thy orb shall circle, Hutchinson. 
And Cole shall shine o'er Mai da's field, 
And Pack, unknowing how to yield 
Nor go without thy bright reward, 
Thou na?ne -re deeming Beresford— 



THE EMERALD ISLE. 59 

Nor thou, brave laughter-loving Doyle, 
Pure symbol of thy native soil: 
Long may'st thou lead thy hero band, 
Guards of their prince and glories of their land. 

But Muse forbear — as well thy power 
Might count the varying vernal shower^ 
Or leaf on the autumnal wood, 
Or billow on the wintry flood, 
Or aught fantastic shadow vain, 
That flits across the wildered brain, 
As limit, by thy humble page, 
The deeds of each revolving age: 
For through the retrospect of time, 
The range of every varied clime, 

Thy country's glories soar sublime. 

**************** 

**************** 

Weak was the hand, unskilled the tongue, 
And the rude lyre uncouthly strung, 
Which thus has sighed its simple strain, 
Poor country, o ? er thy prostrate reign: 
But yet how could I silent see, 
Though all unused to minstrelsy,. 
Thy regal pride, thine ancient name, 
Thy trophied chiefs, thy martial fame** 



60 THE EMERALD ISLE. 

Condemned to bear the ribald jest, 
At random on thy patience cast, 
E'en by the reptile vermin brood 
Who feed and fatten on thy blood. 
And yet perhaps this artless lay 

May wake my country's latent fire. 
Or cheer her exile far away, 

Or string" again her silent lyre. 
Haply beyond the distant sea, 

As lone and sad the wanderer strays, 
Musing, poor Erin, upon thee, 

Scene of his happy infant days, - 
Some soothing breeze may waft the song, 
Though simple yet sincere, along; 
And grief's tempestuous throb subside 
At the faint tone of former pride. 

Oil Erin! blest shall be the bard, 

And sweet and soothing his reward, 

Can he but wake one patriot thrill 

For days, though gone, remembered still, 

Whate'er may be his humble lot, J/ 

By foes denounced, by friends forgot, 

Thine is his soul, his sigh, his smile — 

Gem of the ocean! — lovely emerald isle? 



NOTES. 



NOTES ON THE POEM. 

Look on Brian' 's verdant grave. — Page 12. 

The most vigorous and dangerous enemy 
whom the northern foreigners experienced in I e- 
land was the hero so celebrated in the annals of 
his country by the name of Bri n Borhoime. The 
infancy of Brian was spent in the field, in which, 
when general to his brother, the king of Minister, 
he particularly distinguished himself against the 
Danes who had invaded Ireland. On his brother's 
death he was chosen king, and his reign presents 
a bright assemblage of every virtue which can en- 
dear the heart, and every talent which can adorn 
the reason. In war, Victory pursued his path; in 
peace, the arts embellished his repose. Property 
respected, oppression punished, religion venerated, 
invasion crushed, literature encouraged, and Lw 
maintained, were the sacred characteristics of an 
age which the historian records with delight, and 
the monarch may study with improvement. A 
fresh irruption of the Danes called the venerable 
hero again into action, and the sanguinary achieve- 



64 NOTES. 

ment of Clontarf closed, at the age of eighty -eight, 
the glorious career of a sovereign whose " hand 
was bent on war, but whose heart was for the 
peace of Erin." 

The following curious description of the battle 
of Clontarf is extracted from O'Halloran's History 
of Ireland. 

" At the head of 30,000 men highly appointed, 
Brian marched into Leinster, about the beginning 
of April 1014, in three divisions, and was joined 
by Malachie, king of Meath. He encamped, as he 
had done the year before, near Kilfifrainham. And 
afier both armies viewing each other for some 
time, it was agreed to determine the fate of Ireland 
by a general battle on the plains of Clontarf. Early 
on the 23d of April, being Good-Friday, the Danes 
appeared formed in three separate bodies for bat- 
tle, and by their dispositions Brian regulated his 
own. The auxiliaries from Sweden and Denmark, 
consisting of 12,000 men, among whom 2000 were 
heavy armed, commanded by Brodar and Airgiodal, 
formed the right division. The left, of nearly an 
equal number, commanded by Sitric, composed of 
the Danes of Ireland and their associates, and the 
centre composed of the flower of Leinster, under 
the direction of Maol-Mordha, who acted as gene- 
ral in chief, formed the enemy's disposition of battle. 
It was judged that by placing the troops in this 
manner, under their own leaders, it would raise a 
spirit of generous emulation among them, and that 
they would vie with each other in feats of bravery- 



NOTES. 65 

The right wing of the imperial army was compo • 
sed of the household troops, filled up by the prime 
nobility of Munster. The invincible tribe of Dal- 
gais, with all the princes of Brian's blood, were al- 
so of this division, and Malachie with the forces of 
Meath. This was to be commanded by Morrogh, 
and Sitric, prince of Ulster. In the left wing, 
commanded by the king of Oonnaught, all the 
Conacian troops were placed; but, as it did not 
form so extended a line as the enemy's, several de- 
tachments were added to it. The troops of South 
Munster, under their different chiefs, with those 
of the Deasies, formed the central division. ISrian 
rode through the ranks, with his crucifix in one 
hand, and his drawn sword in the other. He ex- 
horted them, as they passed along, to w do their 
duty as Christians and soldiers in the cause of re- 
ligion and their country. He reminded them of 
all the distresses their ancestors were reduced to 
by the perfidious and sanguinary Danes, strangers 
to religion and humanity. That these, their suc- 
cessors, waited impatiently to renew the same 
scenes of devastation and cruelty, and by way of 
anticipation (says he) they have fixed on the very 
day on which Christ was crucified to destroy the 
country of his greatest votaries. But that God, 
whose cause you are to fight, will be present with 
you, and deliver his enemies into your hands." So 
saying, he proceeded towards the centre, to lead 
his troops to action, but the chiefs of the army, 
witk one voice, requested he would retire from 



66 NOTES. 

the field of battle, on account of his extreme age, 
and leave to the gallant Morrogh the chief com- 
mand. At eight in the morning the signal for 
slaughter was given. The Dalgais, with the whole 
right wing, marched to attack, sword in hand, the 
Danes commanded by Brodar and Airgiodal: but 
an uncommon act of cowardice or treachery had 
like to have destroyed the whole army, for, at this 
very critical moment Malachie, with his Meathians, 
retired suddenly from the field of battle, leaving 
the rest of this body exposed to a far greater num- 
ber of enemies. But Morrogh, with great presence 
of mind, called out to his brave Dalgais, " that 
this was the time to distinguish themselves, as they 
alone would have the unrivalled glory of cutting 
off that formidable body of the enemy." And now, 
while close engaged with battle-axe, sword, and 
dagger on the right, the left, under the command 
of the king of Connaught, hasten to engage the 
Danes of Leinster and their insular levies, whilst 
the troops of South Munster attack the apostate 
Maol Mordha and his degenerate Lagenians. Ne- 
ver was greater animosity, perseverance, and in- 
trepidity displayed in any battle than this, as every 
thing depended on open force and courage. The 
situation of the ground admitted of no ambuscades, 
and none were used. They fought man to man and 
breast to breast, and the victors in one rank fell 
victims in the next. The officers and generals per- 
formed prodigies of valour. Morrogh, his son Tur- 
logh, his brethren and kinsmen flew from place to 



NOTES. 67 

place, and every where left the sanguinary traces 
iof their courage and their fortitude. The fortitude 
displayed by Morrogh determined Carolus and Con- 
maol, two Danes of distinction, to attack in con- 
junction this prince, and both fell by his sword. 
It was observed, that he, with other chiefs, hsd re- 
tired from the battle more than once, and after 
each return seemed to be possessed of redoubled 
force. It was to skke their thirst and cool their 
hands, swelled with the. use of the sword and 
battle-axe, in an adjoining brook, over which a 
small guard was placed, aid this the Danes soon 
destroyed. On rejoining his troops the last time, 
Sitric-Mac-Lodair, with a body of Danes, was ma- 
king a fresh attack on the Dalgais — him Morrogh 
singled out, and, with a blow of his battle-axe, di- 
vided his body in two through his armour. The 
other Irish commanders in like manner distinguish- 
ed themselves, though their exploits are not so 
particularly narrated, and it would seem, from 
thcnurnber of prime nobility that fell on both sides, 
that, besides its being a general battle, the chiefs 
on each side every where singled out each other 
to single combat. 

The courage of the Irish was not to be subdued. 
Till near four o'clock in the afternoon did the issue 
of the day remain doubtful, and then it was that 
they made so general an attack upon the enemy, 
that its force was not to be resisted. Destitute of 
leaders, and of course of order, the Danes gave 
way on every side. Morrogh at this time, through 



68 NOTES. 

the uncommon use and exertion of the sword arm, 
had both his hand and arm so swelled and pained 
as to be unable to lift them up. In this condition 
he was assailed, sword in hand, by Henry, a Da- 
nish prince; but Morrogh, closing in upon him, 
seized him with the left hand, shook him out of 
his coat of mail, and prostrating him, pierced his 
body with his sword, by forcing its pummel on his 
breast, and pressing the weight of his body on it. 
In this dying situation of Henry, he nevertheless 
seized the dagger which hung by Morrogh's side, 
and with it gave him, at the same instant, a mortal 
wound. The Dane expired on the spot, but Mor- 
rogh lived till next morning, employing the inter- 
mediate time in acts of piety and devotion; in ma- 
king, says my manuscript, a general confession, 
receiving the eucharist, and dying as an hero 
and a Christian should die. 

The confusion became general through the Da- 
nish- army, and they fled on every side. Corcoran, 
one of the monarch's aids-de-camp, seeing the 
standard of Morrogh struck, for this notified the 
fall of the chief, and in the general deroute unable 
to distinguish friend from foe, concluded that the 
imperial army was defeated. He hastily entered 
the tent of Brian, who was on his knees before a 
crucifix, and requested he would immediately 
mount his horse and escape, for all was lost. " Do 
you," said the hero, " and my other attendants fly. 
It was to conquer or die I came here, and my 
cmemies shall not boast the killing of me by inglo- 



NOTES. 69 

rious wounds.*' So saying-, be seized his sword 

End battle-axe, his constant companions in war, 
nd resolutely waited the event In the general 
confusion, Brodar and a few of his followers enter- 
ed the royal tent. He was armed from head to 
too:, and yet the gallant old chief pierced his body 
through his coat of mail. Two more of his attend- 
ants met the same fate, and Brian received his 
death by a fourth. 

The intrepid Sitric, prince of Ulster, the faithful 
companion of Brian in all his wars, was witness to 
the death of Morrogh, y.nd revenged it by that of 
Plait, a Danish knight of great intrepidity, and by 
others of less note. Eagerly pursuing Brocbr and 
his party, he saw them enter the tent of Brian, and 
cut to pieces the remains of them. But when he 
beheld the aged monarch extended on the ground, 
his (rrief was extreme. He threw himself on the 
dead body, the many wounds he had received in the 
battle burst forth afresh — he refused every assist- 
ance, and expired in the arms of his friend and 
faithful ally. 

Thus fell the immortal Brian, one of the most 
uniformly perfect characters that history can pro- 
duce. In twenty-five different rencontres, and 
twentr-rrine pitched battles, did he engage his Da- 
nish and other enemies, and victory always attend- 
ed his standard. But if he was terrible to his ene- 
mies in the field, he was mild and merciful to them 
in the cabinet, and, during his whole reign, a sin- 



FO NOTES. 

gle act of cruelty or injustice cannot be laid to his 
charge." 

The learned Vallancey has given the subjoined 
accurate account of the harp belonging to Brian 
Borhoime, now in the museum of Trinity college, 
Dublin. I have myself seen the instrument. His 
harp, crown, and other regalia were given to the 
pope, as the price of some indulgence, by one of 
Brian's sons, and deposited in the Vatican, where 
they remained till Henry VIII. got the harp, with 
the title of Defender of the Faith, from his holi- 
ness, who however kept the crown of pure gold. 
Henry gave the harp to the earl of Clanricarde, and 
down from him its identity has been accurately 
traced. 

" The harp is 32 inches high and of extraordina- 
ry good workmanship. The sounding board is of 
oak; the arms of red sally: the extremity of the 
uppermost arm in front is capped with silver, ex- 
tremely well wrought and chisselled; it contains 
a large crystal set in silver, and under it was ano- 
ther stone now lost. The buttons or ornamental 
knobs, at the side of this arm, are of silver. On 
the front arm are the arms of the O'Brian family 
chased in silver — the bloody hand supported by li- 
ons. On the sides of the front arm, within two cir- 
cles, are two Irish wolf-dogs cut in the wood. 
The holes of the sounding board, where the strings 
entered, are neatly ornamented with escutcheons 
of brass carved and gilt. The large sounding holes 
have been ornamented probably with silver, as they 



NOTES. 71 

J have been the object of theft. This harp has 
twenty-eight keys and as many string-holes, con- 
sequently there were so many strings. The foot- 
piece, or rest, is broken off, and the parts to which 
It was joined are very rotten. The whole bears 
evidence of an expert artist." 
Vallancey^s Collectanea rfe Rebus Hibemicis. No. 12. 

Soul of the Senpicha, — Page 12. 
A name for the old Irish bards. 

s 

By the tongue of Columbkille! — Page 13. 

" It is to be observed/' says Keating, <( that St. 
Columcille, whose memory is so valuable among 
the ancient Irish,, was called originally, at his bap- 
tism, by the name Criomthan: and, if we believe 
the book that gives an account of his vision, whose 
testimony may perhaps be questioned in some par- 
ticulars, his guardian angel, who always attended 
him, was known by the name of Axall; and his 
evil genius, who followed him as a plague to infect 
his mind, and inspire him with wicked thoughts 
and impious designs, was called Demal. The 
change of his name happened when he was under 
the tuition of Florence, who was the tutor that in- 
structed him in the doctrines of religion, and had 
the principal care and management of his educa- 
tion. This master allowed his pupil the liberty of 
one day in the week to divert himself and g*o to 
the neighbouring town to play with his companions, 






72 NOTES. 

who were youths of the same age; and, being a 
child of a very modest and agreeable disposition, 
his company was desired by all the children in the 
country, who, upon the day that he was to go 
abroad, would go to the door of the monastery to 
receive him, and, when they saw him coming to 
the gate, they would, from a transport of joy, lift 
up their hands and cry " here comes Collum-na- 
cille," which in the Irish language signifies The 
Pigeon of the Churchy for he was a child distin- 
guished for his meek behaviour, and the title was 
applied to him with great propriety. . When the 
Abbot Florence, who was his tutor, observed the 
name his companions had bestowed on him, he be- 
gan to think it was the will of Heaven he should 
be so called, and from that time he gave him the 
title of Collum Cille, and never used the name 
of Criomthan, which had been bestowed on him at 
his baptism." — Amongst the old poems concern- 
ing him we find several curious records. 
" This pious saint, as a religious penugce, 
Lay on the cold ground; and through his garments 
His bones looked sharp and meagre. His poor cell 
Was open to the inclemency of the winds 
Which blew through the unplastered walls." 

We find his appearance at the council of Drom- 
ceat thus alluded to. 
" St. Columcille arrived at Dromceat, 
Followed by a retinue of his clergy, 
By twenty prelates of superior order, 
By forty presbyters and fifty deacons, 



NOTES. 73 

And thirty students in divinity 
Not ;. et ordained." 

He has a particular right to poetic celebrity, as 
the same quaint verse informs us, 
° The poets were secured from banishment 
Bv Collum Cille, who, by his sage advice, 
Softened the king's resentment, and prevailed 
That every Irish monarch should retain 
A learned poet—every provincial prince 
And lord of a cantred were by right allowed 
The same privilege and honour." 

Of Conn of the hundred fights. — Page 13. 

An old Irish monarch, whose bravery was such 
that his name has descended to us with the superb 
title of " Conn of the hundred battles." He reign- 
ed twenty years, and was assassinated in the royal 
palace of Tara by fifty men, habited as women, 
employed by the king of Ulster. 

Of Cor mac — heart of fire. — Page 13. 

This philosophic king was proclaimed in the 
year of Christ 254. During his celebrated reign 
he instituted three universities at Tara; — one de- 
voted to the improvement of the art of war, a se- 
cond to history, and a third to law. It was he 
who appointed the ten officers to attend the throne, 
so quaintly enumerated in the following old poem . 
Having lost an eye, he was obliged by the law 4 



74 NOTES. 



T: 



which forbade a physical defect in any Irish sove- 
reign, to abdicate the throne. He retired to a 
small rural retreat called Anacoil; where, in the 
dignified seclusion of philosophy, he wrote his 
two enlightened treatises, entitled " Advice to a 
King," and " The Obedience due to Princes." — 
How truly regal was such a retirement* 

u Ten royal officers for use and state, 

Attend the court, and on the monarch wait; 

A nobleman, whose virtuous actions gfafce 

His blood, and add new glory to his race. 

A judge, to fix the meaning of the laws, 

To save the poor, and right the injured cause; 

A grave physician, by his artful care, 

To ease the sick, and weakened health repair; 

A poet, to applaud and boldly blame, 

And justly give to infamy or fame; 

For without him the freshest laurels fade, 

And vice to dark oblivion is betrayed. 

The next attendant was a faithful priest, 

Prophetic fury rolled within his breast; 

Pull of his God, he tells the distant doom 

OF kings unborn and ages yet to come; 

Daily he worships at the holy shrine, 

And pacifies his God with rites divine; 

With constant care the sacrifice renews, 

And anxiously the panting entrails views, 

To touch the harp the sweet musician bends, 

And both his hands upon the strings extends; 

The softest soul flows from each warbling string, 

Soft as the breezes of the breathing spring! 



NOTES. 75 

Music has power the passions to control, 
And tune the harsh disorders of the soul. 
The antiquary, by his skill, reveals 
The race of kings, and all their offspring tells, 
The spreading branches of the royal line, 
Traced out by him, in lasting records shine. 
Three officers in lowest order stand, 
And when he drives in state, attend the king's 
command." 

f, 

At Kirivan' s great neglected name. — Page 18. 

Kir wan — "the glory of the priesthood and the 
shame." The powers of this amazing man were 
so transcendant, that, when he preached, it was 
found necessary to surround the church with an 
armed force, in order to guard against the impa- 
tient multitudes which assembled to hear him, In 
the course of his divine mission he obtained, in the 
cause of charity, above sixty thousand pounds, and 
at length fell a victim to his great and continued 
exertion. 

I remember, when in college, meeting the fune- 
ral of Kirwaii; it was attended by the children bf 
every charity school in Dublin; and a sad sight it 
was, to see the widow and the fatherless, in the pro- 
cession of their departed benefactor. Those who 
are acquainted with the usual routine of church 
preferment will not be surprised to hear that this 
inspired genius, after a long probation of poverty, 
-was rewarded by a deanery of six hundred pounds a 



76 NOTES. 

year, in a miserable fishing' village in Ireland! Paul 
preached in the -wilderness! " He called forth," said 
Mr. Grattan, in the Irish house of commons, w the 
latent virtue of the human heart, and taught men 
to discover in themselves a mine of charity, of 
which the proprietors had been unconscious: in 
feeding the lamp of charity he exhausted the lamp 
of life. He comes to interrupt the repose of the pul- 
pit, and shakes one world with the thunder of ano- 
ther. The preacher's desk becomes a throne of 
light — around him a train, not such as crouch and 
swagger at the levee of viceroys— horse, foot, und 
dragoons; but that wherewith a great genius peo- 
ples his own state — charity in ecstacy and vice in 
humiliation — not as With you, in cabinet against 
the people, but in humiliation — vanity, arrogance, 
and saucy empty pride, appalled by the rebuke of 
the preacher, and cheated, for a moment, of their 
native improbity and insolence. What reward! St. 
Nicholas without, or St. Nicholas within? The 
curse of Swift is upon him, to have been born an 
Irishman, to have been a man of genius, and to 
have used it for the good of his country. Had this 
man, instead of being the brightest of preachers, 
been the dullest of lawyers; had he added to dul- 
ness, venality; had be aggravated the crime of ve- 
nality by senatorial turpitude, he had been a judge; 
or had he been born a blockhead, bred a slave, 
trained up in a great English family, and handed 
over as an household circumstance to the Irish 
viceroy, he should have been an Irish bishop and 



NOTES. 77 

an Irish peer, with a great patronage, perhaps 7 a 
borough, and had returned members to vote against 
Ireland; and the Irish parochial clergy must have 
adored his venality, and deified his dulness. But, 
under the present system, Ireland is not the ele- 
ment in which a native genius can rise, unless he sell 
that genius to the court; and atones, by the apos- 
tasies of his conduct for the crime of his nativity." 

It is impossible to deny the truth of this melan- 
choly picture — there is not a superficial observer 
who may not see it every day exemplified in Ire- 
land, in every profession, but above all others in 
the church, If I were to select one instance out of 
many, it should be that of a man on whom the pub- 
lic eye has long been turned with esteem for his 
virtue, veneration for his talent, and disgust at his 
neglect — need I mention the learned author of the 
work on the atonement. At the bar, Dr. Magee 
might have been a judge, in the army a general, or 
in the senate a minister; but in the church his 
gown accuses his genius, and he fades away before 
the excrescences of wealthy ignorance or the rins- 
ings of decayed nobility. Happily for him his splen- 
did talents have placed him beyond want; but it is 
an injustice to the world that such talents should 
pine neglected 'mid the seclusion of a college. 
Ex uno disce omnes. 

I confess the state of the churoh has often struck 
me with extreme astonishment, and devoutly have 
I prayed for another reformation, after contrasting 
the laborious indigence of a curate, struggling to 



7B NOTES. 

maintain the decencies of life on seventy pounds a 
year, with the comparative ease of a prelate, wal- 
lowing" on its luxuries in an income of twenty thou- 
sand pounds. Va mate! Sus atque Sacerdos! Of 
the Irish bishops I have little knowledge. They 
may be very good kind of men, and doubtless they 
are so. > Dr. Stock is the only one amongst them 
whose name has been in our day attached to litera- 
ture. The remarks have, however, been extorted 
from me by the melancholy neglect of the most 
splendid prodigy the church ever produced; and 
perhaps, if lord Harrowby would lend his intelli- 
gent mind to their consideration, he might infer a 
very simple reason why " dissenting sects are 
springing up like mushrooms." — (See his lordship's 
speech on the subject of the church, June 1810.) 



/ 



But happier thou, fair Oivenson, to feel — Page 19. 

Sydney Owenson, married to sir Charles Thomas 
Morgan, M. D. This lady, who moves in the high- 
est sphere of fashion, acquired great popularity by 
her various novels, particularly by that of the Wild 
Irish Girl, and subsequently by the Missionary, 
an eastern tale; and the enlarged edition of St. 
Clair, or the Heiress of Desmond — the latter is an 
elegant specimen of epistolary talent, and is em- 
bellished with a highly finished portrait of the fair 
author. 



tfOTES 79 

v Unconquered Erin. — Page 24. 

It is the boast of Ireland never to have been 
conquered. Her first invaders, the Danes, did, it 
is true, establish a settlement in the country; but 
it was rather the temporary haunt of a barbarous 
banditti, than the peaceful residence of established 
conquerors. After years of rapine, murder, and 
desolation, they were utterly extirpated, leaving, 
in place of the venerable monuments they had de- 
stroyed, a few rude forts and rocky circles, to re- 
main at once the record of their crimes, their fol- 
lies, and their failure. 

It is well ascertained that the Romans never 
landed in Ireland; and the English historians pre- 
tend, on the faith of 7'acitus, that it was from con- 
tempt, as they were informed that a single legion 
and a *few auxiliaries would be sufficient for its 
conquest. It must not be forgotten, however, that 
this redoubted piece of information is, by Tacitus 
himself, put into the mouth, and derived from the 
authority of a faithless Irish chieftain. The Irish 
historian relates, that so little was Crimthan, the 
king of Ireland at that time, afraid of an invasion 
of the Romans, that he absolutely sailed to the as- 
sistance of the Picts; led an irruption into a Roman 
province, and returned home covered with its 
spoils. Surely this open violence was a much great* 
er provocation to Rome, than that which tempted 
Csesar to his incursion on England; and, so far from 
the authority of Tacitus being decisive on the sub- 
ject, we find turn, in his life of Agrkola, saying 



80 



NOTES. 



that the Romans wished to conquer Ireland, in or- 
der that the tantalizing* spirit of liberty, so near 
them, might be taken from the view of subjugated 
Englishmen. " Ut libertas tanquam e conspectu 
tollatur." 

Caesar himself was so ignorant of Ireland, that he 
merely speaks of the size of it from report.—" Hi- 
bernia dimidio minor, tit existimatur, quam Britan- 
nia." Why Caesar did not turn his arms to Ireland 
can now only become the theme of visionary cal- 
culation or ingenious conjecture. It is far from 
probable that he who could squander his force 
among the fens of Britain and their ferocious na- 
tives, would look with an eye of contempt upon 
the natural and spontaneous fertility of Ireland. 
Much more likely does it appear, that the politic 
commander, finding a nation of such extent, da- 
ring and dauntless, under the very eye of England, 
and of course superior in discipline, prudently turn- 
ed to acquisitions of easier accession, from the try- 
ing contest with a then happily united people^ where 
every heart was free and every hill was a fortress. 
The example of Switzerland, in our own day, 
has shown of what such a people are capable, even 
against the opposition of science, intrepidity, and 
power the most disproportionate. Before the land- 
ing of the English, we have the testimony of Ire- 
land's most unblushing slanderer, Cambrensis, that 
Ireland had extirpated her former invaders: " Hi- 
hernia," says he, " ab initio ab omni allarum gen* 
tium incursu libera permansit." 



NOTES. 81 

To the consideration of this so much misrepre- 
sented invasion, which a few mendicant minions 
have not scrupled, in the face of history, treaties, 
and their own experience, to magnify into conquest, 
we now come. Henry II. was our first royal im- 
portation from Britain, and he laid the basis of 
that conduct of his country to ours, the contem- 
plation of which bars all originality in future 
crime, by affording a precedent for every vice of 
which the human heart is capable. So far was 
Henry II., however, from having conquered Ire- 
land, that we find him, on the 8th of October, 
1175, entering into a treaty of peace with Roderic 
O'Connor, as monarch of the country, the terms of 
which treaty are still extant inRymer's Focdera. This 
treaty was afterwards shamefully violated by the 
English, even as confessed by the English histori- 
ans, and the example of regal perfidy found but 
too many imitators in al^ter times upon the Eng- 
glish throne. The Irish, however, never acknow- 
ledged at any time the superiority of England: on 
the contrary, they always held her inhabitants in 
utter contempt, as a race who owed to them the 
little civilisation they possessed, and repaid the 
gift with all the ingratitude of lingering ferocity. 
Thus, speaking of Charles the red-handed, Geo- 
ghegan says, " Les decendans de ce vaillant prince 
ne prirent jamais des titres d'honneur des rois 
d'Angleterre, titres queplupart des anciens Irlan- 
dois mepriserent." In confirmation of this asser- 
tion, w« are told by f Warner, that when Richard 
d 2 



82 NOTES 

II. landed in Dublin, he offered to knight some of 
the young chieftains; but they instantly refused 
him, adding that, at the age of seven years, they 
had received from their fathers much nobler dig- 
nities. The humblest Irishman of ancient times 
would have smiled at the idea of being ennobled by 
a people whom they considered, says Nubrigensis, 
as the scum of the ocean — " Impurum maris ejec- 
tamentum." 

It is not my intention here to recapitulate the 
conduct of the English down to the reign of James 
II., because whatever gratification I might feel from 
beholding my countrymen supporting their assail- 
ed independence with the ardour of patriots, the 
pride of freemen, and the dignity of princes, would 
be more than counteracted by the opposite balance 
of atrocious provocation and perfidious arrogance*. 
Neither my pride nor my sensibility will allow me 
to ransack the ruins of human nature, even to adorn 
the decorations of our national structure. 

The treaty of Limerick has been kept precisely 
as all other treaties with this country were; that is, 
violated in every particular. King William, indeed, 
the Draco of Ireland, left to England a legacy of 
perpetual persecution to those who proved their 
best claim to the regal protection by their adhe- 
rence to an hapless king, and to his in particular, 
because the victim was his father-in-law. But who 
could expect either gratitude or forgiveness from 
the gloomy murderer of Glenco? I trample on the 
impious ashes of that Vandal tyrant who persecu- 



NOTES. £3 

ted Christianity and colonized ignorance among a 
people, venerated for their simple faith and ancient 
learning 1 ! what a heart must he have had who 
could hunt his kindred into the very sanctuary of 
their misfortune, leaving it to future ages desola- 
ted and denounced, the scene of legalized barba- 
rism and penal piety! But may his crimes have 
mercy — their consequences have ceased. The 
Christian hand of George III, has commenced the 
work of expiation; guided by heaven, he has dis- 
mantled the penal fabric, leaving to future sove- 
reigns a glorious example, by following which 
their throne will be strengthened and their death- 
bed consolatory. 

Sj And Swift the -wonder of the age — Page 2§. 

A doubt has been attempted to be cast upon the 
birth-place of Swift: but an account, written by 
hi??iself and now to be seen in the manuscript libra- 
ry of Dublin university, sets the question at rest. 
He there says he was born in Dublin. It is indeed 
fully proved by his own patriotic lines, in which he 
says, 

Britain confess this land of mine 
First gave you human knowledge and divine, 
Our prelates and our sages, sent from hence, 
Made your sons converts both to God and sense. 

The following very eloquent character of this 
great man, extracted from a recent publication, 
has been attributed to the classical pen of sir Win- 



84 NOTES. 

Smith, one of the barons of his majesty's court of 
exchequer in Ireland. " On this gloom one lumi- 
nary rose, and Ireland worshipped it with Persian 
idolatry. Her true patriot, her first, almost her 
last. Sagacious and intrepid, he saw, he dared. 
Above suspicion he was trusted; above envy he 
was beloved; above rivalry, he was obeyed. His 
wisdom was practical and prophetic; remedial for 
the present, warning for the future. He first 
taught Ireland that she might become a nation, and 
England that she might cease to be a despot. But 
he was a churchman; his gown impeded his course 
and entangled his efforts; guiding a senate, or 
heading an army, he had been more than Crom- 
well, and Ireland not less than England. As it 
was, he saved her by his courage, improved her 
by his authority, adorned her by his talents, and 
exalted her by his fame. His mission was but of 
ten years, and for ten years only did his personal 
power mitigate the government. But though no 
longer feared by the great, he was not forgotten by 
the wise. His influence, like his writings, has sur- 
vived a century, and the foundations of whatever 
prosperity we have since erected, are laid in the 
disinterested and magnanimous patriotism of 
Swift." 

ftf Thou, magic Spenser. — Page 28. 

The peasantry still show, in the south of Ireland, 
the little cottage in which Spenser wrote his Fairy 
Queen. 






NOTES S5 

0. 

JVfcr shouldsi thou, Farquhar, absent be.— Page 28. 

The last of Farquhar's plays, which he finished 
on his death-bed, is esteemed his best. It was 
written in six weeks, during' a settled illness, and 
he died, as he had often foretold, before the run of 
the piece was over. 

_And sire and patriot in Quin appears/ 
Who, with a soul can nature's pang endure, 
While Barry trembles in the tortured Moor, 
And see, for ages shaded from our view, 
Jlfacklin gave life to the revengeful Jew? 
Clive and Comedy came together. — Page 29. 

The lovers of the drama record, with delight, 
the excellence of Quin's Cato, Barry's Othello, 
and Macklin's Shylock, This latter gentleman was 
the first who reformed the part, Shylock having 
always been played before this time as a comic 
character. He is also celebrated for his admirable 
comedies of The Man of the World and Love a-la- 
Mode. 

Of Mrs. Clive Dr. Johnson said, that what she 
did best, she did better than Garrick. 

Or the sweet swelling echo of Albany's lyre. — Page 30. 
Albanv is the ancient name of Scotland. 



86 NOTES. 

/e) Poor Dermody, — Page 32. 

Dermody, a second Chatterton, died of wa»t, 
and disease, the consequence of it, in England. 
Bee Raymond's Life. 

/// A rude cairn at last! — Page 33. 

The cairns are heads or piles of loose stones, 
very common in Ireland. They are supposed to 
have been anciently the burial place of chieftains; 
and, indeed, to this day the custom of erecting a, 
cairn on the scene of any remarkable death is com-* 
mon amongst the peasantry. To sir W. Colt 
Hoare's very splendid work on ancient Wiltshire, 
I must refer those who wish for much curious in- 
formation on this subject. The most extraordina- 
ry production of this kind now in existence is that 
of Stonehenge, on Salisbury plain, on which Keat- 
ing, our Irish Livy, makes the following remarks: 
" The indefatigable Stowe, in his British Chronicle, 
printed in London, in 1614, gives an account, that 
the Germans or Saxons were so pleased with the 
fertility and air of the island, that they barbarous- 
ly murdered, at one massacre, four hundred and 
eighty of the nobility and gentry of Britain; and, 
that \urelius Ambrosious, then king of Britain, 
caused the stones that were brought by Merlin from 
Mount Claire, in the province of Munster, to be 
erected in the same place where the barbarous ex- 
ecution was committed, as an eternal monument of 
German cruelty upon the natives of Britain." Some 



NOTES. 87 

fl time after, Aurelius himself was buried in the same 
place; and the same author observes, that these 
stones, when they were fixed, were called chorea 
gigantam, but now are known by the name of Stone- 
henge, on Salisbury plain. The historian farther 
remarks, that the Irish brought these stones with 
them from Africa; and what Geoffrey of Monmouth 
observes is very remarkable, that no two of those 
stones came originally out of the same part of the 
country. It is, indeed, remarkable* that Cam- 
brensis himself, in some degree, confirms this cu- 
rious record. He says, " Fuit antiquis temporibus 
" in Hibernia, lapidum congeries admiranda quae 
" et chorea gigantum dicta fuit." 

For these opinions I am too little of an antiqua- 
ry to profess myself responsible. There are, how- 
ever in the fields around me, many similar mo- 
numents to that of Stonehenge, though of less ex- 
tent. The stones of many are immense, and rais- 
ed to an height to the elevation of which human 
strength, without the aid of machirery would, in 
our day, be quite inadequate. 

y £ Perhaps e'en there on FingaVs arm. — Page 34. 

Fin, or Fingal, was general of Cormac O'Conn, 
kins' of Ireland. He planted a colony in Scotland 
and, by incursions at the head of his flan or militia, 
protected it from the Romans. . He is the Sr.me 
whom Mr Macpherson calls " King of the Woody 
Morven;" and in order to claim whom for Scot- 
land, ho has recourse to the gross anachronism of 



88 NOTES. 

making" him contemporary with Cucullin, who* 
reigned two hundred years before! The following 
rhapsody descriptive of him has been ascribed to 
Ossian. " Finn, of the large and liberal soul of 
bounty; exceeding all his countrymen in the prow- 
ess and accomplishments of a warrior. — King of 
mild majesty and numerous bards. — The ever open 
house of kindness was his heart, the seat of un- 
daunted courage. Great was the chief of the migh- 
ty Fenii. Finn of the perfect soul, the consummate 
wisdom, whose knowledge penetrated events and 
pierced through the veil of futurity. Finn, of the 
splendid and ever during glories. Bright were his 
blue rolling eyes, and his hair like flowing gold! 
Lovely were the charms of his unaltered beauty, 
and his cheeks like the glowing rose. Each fe- 
male heart overflowed with affection for the hero, 
whose bosom was like the whiteness of the chalky 
cliff! Finn — the king of the glittering blades of 
war." 

/I} Or there (Emanids palace rose. — Page 34. 

CEmania, the superb palace of the kings of Ul- 
ster. 

/ / Ollam inhaled a nation's wee*.— Page 34. 

Ollam Fodhk, the celebrated legislator of Ire- 
land. He was tl.e institutor of ihe Feis Teamrach 
or parliament of Tara. See Tara. 



NOTES. 89 

/^ Or noble Oscar died. — Page 34. 

Oscar, the son of Ossian, whose prowess has 
been immortalized by the poetry of his father. 

Though Scotia unfilial the solace denies. — Page 35. 

That Ossian was an Irishman I consider myself 
fully warranted in assuming, notwithstanding the 
effrontery of Macpherson's fabrication. It is. not 
easy to conceive how any one can be duped into a 
belief of the authenticity of Macpherson's Ossian, 
after considering with what petulent obstinacy he 
uniformly refused the* production of the manu- 
script. The rational inference is that he did not 
possess it, and if not, how absurd is the idea that 
he could have compiled a regular epic poem, hand- 
ed down through so many hundred years by so 
frail and faithless a vehicle as oral tradition! As 
to the authenticity of some of the minor pieces 
there is no doubt; and the way in which they tra- 
velled to Scotland can be easily accounted for, by 
the circumstance of Finn's landing there, w r ith his 
Irish troops; amongst whom it is natural to sup- 
pose that the battle and hunting songs of their 
great national contemporary bard were in high ve- 
neration. There are few old peasants in Ireland 
who cannot repeat many of those fragments, and 
who do not feel, even at this day, a superstitious 
reverence for the prowess of Finn-ma Comhal and 
the poetry of Ossian. There is no trace, however, 
of any perfect epic poem to be found, nor can any 



90 NOTES. 

man of common sense expect it, after a lapse of so 
many centuries. That the Scotch have many of 
our customs and traditional songs is perfectly 
natural, as the colony will always retain some tra- 
ces of the mother country. On this subject I re- 
fer the reader, not to any vague conjecture of mo- 
dern days, but to the following conclusive autho- 
rities of ancient writers. 

Cambrensis acknowledges that Niall the Irish 
monarch equipped a numerous fleet to invade Bri- 
tain and Gaul; and by it expelled the old inhabi- 
tants from the north of Britain, and peopled it. 
" Gens," says he, " ab his propagia, specificato 
" vocabulo Scotia vocatur in hodiernum." — Topo- 
graph. Hibevn. caput 16. 

Gildas, a monk, who wrote in 564, says, " No- 
" vissime venerunt Scoti a partibus Hispaniae ad 
" Hiberniam." 

The venerable Bede — M Hibernia, propria Sco- 
" tornrn p atria." 

Capgravius — " Hibernia enim antiquitus Scotia 
M dicta est, de qua gens Scotonim." 

Cesarius — " Ireland was properly known by the 
" name of Scotia, out of which a colony of the Scots 
" removed and settled themselves in the country 
" possessed by the Picts in Britain." 

Buchanan (a Scotchman) — " Scoti omnes Hiber- 
" niae habitatores initio vocabantur ut indicat Oro- 
" sius; nee semel Scotorum ex Hibernia transitum 
" in Albaniam factum, nostri annales referunt." 



NOTES. 91 

James I., in his speech at Whitehall, declares 
" I have two reasons to be careful of the welfare of 
" the Irish; — first, as king of England, by reason of 
"the connexion of the countries; and next as king 
" of Scotland; for the ancient kings of Scotland 
" are descended from the kings of Ireland" Lord 
Lyttleton, in his life of Henry II., allows " the 
" having sent forth a colony which has risen to 
" such a height of dominion and greatness, is a 
" glory of which Ireland may justly boast." The 
reason why Ireland was anciently called Scotia 
was, because it took the name of Scotia, the wife 
of Milesius. Such are my authorities. 

— Si quid novisti rectius istis 
Candidus imperti— si non, his utere mecum. 

Lo! by the sod where classic Barry sleeps.— Page 37* 

Barry, the celebrated painter, whose beautiful 
pieces, to be seen at the Adelphi in London, just- 
ly placed him in the first rank of his profession. 
His painting of Elysium is a rich spectacle to the 
eye of genius, and fully justifies the opinion of 
Johnson, " that no man brought more mind to his 
"profession." See Bosweli's Life. 

The shade of Caroian should come. — Page 08. 

Carolan, the Orpheus of the Irish peasantry, 
was born in the county of Westmeath in the year 
1670. Poverty, the usual fate of genius, attended 
him; but, with the usual fire of genius, he oyer- 



92 NOTES. 

came it. With no companion but his harp, and no 
patronage but his fancy, he found an easy access 
to the board of Irish hospitality, where his wants 
were a sufficient introduction, and his song" an 
ample recompense. At an early age he had the 
misfortune to lose his sight by the small-pox; but 
such was his fortitude that he merely remarked 
** his eyes were transplanted into his ears." In 
one of his love songs, however, he touches on Jt 
in the following beautiful and pathetic allusion. 

" E'en he whose eyes isdmit no ray 
Of beauty's pure and splendid day, 
Yet though he cannot see the light, 
He feels it warm and knows it bright." 

In his rambles he met with the celebrated Gemi- 
niani, the same who said he found no music on this 
side the Alps so orig' nal and affecting as the Irish 
— the foreigner, wishing to surpass, and perhaps 
surprise our peasant minstrel, played before him 
some of the most difficult Italian pieces; but what 
was his astonishment at hearing Carolan, when he 
had concluded, distinctly follow him through all 
their variations with a rapidity of execution and 
delicacy of touch peculiarly his own. 

Armed with his harp, Carolan was invincible; 
and whether in mirth or in melancholy he swept 
its strings, Nature was his instructress and Sym- 
pathy his slave. The child of impulse, all his emo- 
tions were involuntary. When warmed into any 
sudden sensibility of feeling, his heart, if I may 



NOTES. 93 

so express it, was at his fingers' ends. It was in 
one of those moments of inspiration that he poured 
forth his beautiful pieces of sacred music and that 
delightful air called his Receipt, better known, 
perhaps, by the appellation of Bumper, Squire 
Jones. 

It is a general remark that those who have been 
so unfortunate as to lose their sight are often com- 
pensated by the superior quickness of the other 
senses. Of this our minstrel was a striking in- 
stance, as the following anecdote, related by Mr, 
Walker, will testify. In his youth he was much 
enamoured of a peasant girl, called Bridget Cruise, 
who, however, was unpoetic enough to slight his 
advances, and they parted. After an interval of 
some years, Carolan went on a pilgrimage to an 
island in Lough Deargh, long venerable in the eye 
of rural superstition. On his return he found some 
devotees waiting the arrival of the boat, and taking 
the hand of a female in order to assist her on board, 
he instantly exclaimed, " By the hand of my gos- 
sip this is the hand of Bridget Cruise;" which in- 
deed it proved to be. 1 had the relation from his 
own mouth, said Mr. O'Connor, and in terms 
which strongly impressed me with the emotion 
which he felt at thus accidentally meeting the ob- 
ject of his early affections. I have remarked that 
Carolan lived on the casual bounty of those he 
chose to visit. To the universal courtesy of his 
welcome there is but one exception, and his poe- 
tic revenge affords a specimen of ready and caus- 



94 NOTES. 

tic satire which ought not to be omitted. In one ' 
of his excursions he called at a house where he had 
always been received with the ceadth milha foiltha, 
—an hundred thousand -welcomes — the proverbial 
expression of Irish hospitality: the master of the 
mansion was unfortunately absent, and a " pam- 
pered menial" called O'Flynn, drove poor Carolan 
away. He instantly sung 1 , accompanied by his harp, 
the following' lines — 

" What a pity hell's gates were not kept by 

O'Flynn, 
So surly a dog would let nobody in." 

Severe indeed must the inhospitable prohibition 
have appeared to him whose heart was an alms- 
house, and whose little all was public property. 
By the death of Carolan, Ireland lost the last of 
those harmonious wanderers who were the min- 
strels of her ancient happiness — the music of her 
summer day. His thoughts, his love, his soul, his 
very sigh, was Irish; and, in the melodious mourn- 
ing of his national enthusiasm, when entertained 
at the residence of one of our fallen princes, he was 
heard to exclaim, "Here, and here only, in this 
house of O'Connor, my harp has the old sound in 
it." 

The following affecting anecdote will show the 
amiable estimation of his private life. A short 
time after his death, his bosom friend and brother 
minstrel, M'Cabe, who had not heard even of his 
illness, went to see him; in passing through the 



NOTES. 95 

church-yard near Carolan's cottage, he met a pea- 
sant of whom he inquired for his friend. The pea- 
sant pointed to his grave. M'Cabe tottered to 
the spot, and sinking down on it in agony, after 
some moments, thus vented his poetic lamenta- 
tion. 

H I came with Friendship's face to glad my heart, 

But sad and sorrowful my steps depart; 

In my friend's stead a spot of earth was shown, 

And on his grave my w r o-struck eyes were thrown; 

No more to their distracted sight remained 

But the cold clay that all they loved contained. 

And there his last and narrow bed was made, 

And the drear tombstone for its covering laid. 

Alas! for this my aged heart is wrung, 

Grief choaks my voice and trembles on my tongue; 

Lonely and desolate 1 mourn the dead, 

The friend with whom my every comfort fled. 

There is no anguish can with this compare, 

No pains* diseases, sufferings, nor despair, 

Like that I feel, while such a loss I mourn; 

My heart's companion from its fondness torn. 

Oh! insupportable, distracting grief! 

Wo that through life can never hope relief! 

Sweet-singing harp, thy melody is o'er — 

Sweet Friendship's voice — I hear thy sound no 

more — 
My bliss — my wealth of poetry is fled — 
And every joy with him I loved is dead! 
Alas! what wonder (while my heart drops blood 
Upon the woes that draiji its vital flood) 



96 NOTES. 

If maddening grief no longer can be borne, 
And frenzy fills the breast with anguish torn!" 

Those who are unacquainted with his music may 
find some of his most beautiful airs in the Irish 
Melodies, where, like gems set in gold, they ap- 
pear " married" to the " immortal verse" of the in- 
imitable Anacreon Moore. 

Carolan died at the age of sixty-eight, and was 
buried in the parish church of Kilronan, in the dio- 
cess of Ardagh. A simple mount of grass forms 
his appropriate monument, and pure is the tear 
with which Nature's children consecrate his me- 
mory. 

Mr. Walker, in his valuable treatise on the bards 
of Ireland, has given many of Carolan's songs and 
poems, out of which I have selected the two fol- 
lowing sweet specimens, that the reader may form 
some idea of the genius of this self-taught minstrel. 
They have been translated from the original Irish 
by Miss Brooke. 

SONG FOR MABLE LELLY. 

By Carolan. 
The youth whom favouring heaven's decree 
To join his fate, my fair, with thee, 
And see that lovely head of thine, 
With fondness on his arm recline: 

No thought but joy can fill his mind, 
Nor any care can entrance find; 



NOTES. 

Nor sickness hurt, nor terror shake; 
And death will spare him for thy sake. 

For the bright flowing of thy hair, 
That decks a face so heavenly fair, 
And a fair form to match that face, 
The rival of the sygnet'a grace: 

When with calm dignity she moves, 
Where the clear stream her hue improves, 
Where she her snowy bosom laves, 
And floats majestic on the waves. 

Grace gave thy form, in beauty gay, 
And ranged thy teeth in bright array, 
All tongues with joy thy praises tell, 
And Love delights with thee to dwell! 

To thee harmonious powers belong, 
That acid to verse the charms of song, 
Soft melody to numbers join, 
And make the poet half divine. 

As when the softly blushing rose, 
Close by some neighbouring lily glows, 
Such is the glow thy cheeks diffuse, 
And such their bright and blended hues. 

The timid lustre of thine eye, 
With nature's purest tints can vie, 
With the sweet blue-bell's azure gem, 
That drops upon its modest stem. 



97 



'» NOTES. 

The poets of Ierne's plains, 
To thee devote their choicest strains; 
And oft their harps for thee are strung 1 , 
And oft thy matchless charms are sung. 

Thy voice, that binds the listening soul, 
That can the wildest rage control, 
Bid the fierce crane its powers obey, 
And charm him from his finny prey: 

Nor doubt I oft its wondrous art, 
Nor hear, with unimpassioned heart) 
Thy health, thy beauties ever dear, 
Oft crown my glass with sweetest cheer. 

Since the famed fair of ancient days, 
Whom bards and worlds conspired to praise* 
Not one like thee has since appeared, 
Like thee to every heart endeared. 

How blest the bard, oh lovely maid! 
To find thee in thy charms arrayed; 
Thy pearly teeth, thy flowing hair, 
Thy neck beyond the cygnet fair. 

As when the simple birds at night, 
Fly round the torch's fatal light, 
Wild and with ecstacy elate, 
Unconscious of approaching fate; 

So the soft splendours of thy face, 
And thy fair form's enchanting grace> 



NOTES. 99 

Allure to death unwary love, 

And thousands the bright ruin prove. 

Even he whose hapless eyes no ray 
Admit from beauty's splendid day, 
Yet, though he cannot see the light, 
He feels it warm and knows it bright* 

In beauty, talents, taste refined, 
And all the graces of the mind, 
In all unmatched thy charms remain, 
Nor meet a rival on the plain. 

Thy slender foot, thine azure eye, 
Thy smiling lip of scarlet die, 
Thy tapering hand, so soft and fair, 
The bright redundance of thy hair! 

Oh blest be the auspicious day, 
That gave them to thy poet's lay, 
O'er rival bards to lift his name, 
Inspire his verse and swell his fame. 
The following is his monody on the death of his 
wife. 

Were mine the choice of intellectual fame, 

Of spellful song and eloquence divine, 
Painting's sweet power, philosophy's pure flame, 

And Homer's lyre and Ossian's harp were mine, 
The splendid arts of Erin, Greece,* and Rome, 

In Mary lost, would lose their wonted grace. 
All would I give to snatch her from the tomb, 

Again to fold her in my fond embrace! 



100 tfOTES. 

Desponding", sick, exhausted with my grief, 

Awhile the founts of sorrow ceased to flow- 
In vain — I rest not— sleep brings no relief — 

Cheerless, companionless, I wake to wo! 
Nor birth, nor beauty shall again allure, 

Nor fortune win me to another bride; 
Alone I'll wander, and alone endure, 

'Till death restore me to my dear one's side. 

Once every thought and every scene was gay, 

Friends, mirth, and music all my hours em- 
ployed — 
Now doomed to mourn my last sad years away, 

My life a solitude — my heart a void. 
Alas the change! to change again no more: 

For every comfort is with Mary fled, 
And ceaseless anguish shall her loss deplore, 

'Till age and sorrow join me with the dead! 

Adieu each gift of nature and of art, 

'That erst adorned me in life's early prime, 
The cloudless temper and the social heart, 

The soul ethereal and the song sublime! 
Thy loss, my Mary, chased them from my breast; 

Thy sweetness cheers, thy judgment aids no 
more; 
The muse deserts an heart with grief opprest, 

Ajid lost is every joy that charmed before. 



NOTES. 101 

*f* In Erbi's elder day. — Page 40. 

Perhaps the annals of the world cannot furnish a 
more striking instance of the savage effects of per- 
secution on the human mind than Ireland. It will 
indeed be difficult to persuade those contempla- 
ting what she is, of the high station which she held 
at former periods; but unless the positive testimo- 
ny of even hostile historians be rejected, with an 
hardihood at which scepticism would blush, she 
must appear "the luminary of the western world 
whence savage septs and roving barbarians derived 
the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of re- 
ligion." u Many Saxons," says lord Lyttleton, 
" resorted thither for instruction, and brought from 
thence the use of letters to their ignorant country- 
men. We learn from Bede, an Anglo-Saxon him- 
self, that about. the middle of the seventh century, 
numbers, both of the nobles and of the second 
rank of Englishmen, retired out of England into 
Ireland, for the sake of studying theology and lead- 
ing there a stricter life. And all these the Irish, 
whom Bede calls Scots, most willingly received 
and maintained at their own charge, supplying 
them also with books, and being their teachers 
without fee or reward! a most honourable testimo- 
ny, not only to the learning, but also to the bounty 
and hospitality of that nation. Great praise is also 
due to the piety of the Irish ecclesiastics, who, as 
we know from the clear and unquestionable testi- 
mony of many foreign writers, made themselves 
the apostfes of barbarous heathen nations, without 



102 NOTES. 

any apparent inducement to such laborious under-, 
taking, except the merit of the work. By the 
preaching of these men the Northumbrians, the 
East-Angles, and the northern Picts were con- 
verted. Convents also were founded by them in 
Burgundy, Flanders, Germany, Italy, and other 
foreign countries, where they were distinguished 
by the rigid integrity and purity of their manners. 
So that Ireland, from the opinion conceived of their 
piety, was styled, the Island of Saints." 

To this generous tribute of lord Lyttleton may 
be added the equally unprejudiced authority of 
another English writer of our own day. " In Ire- 
land," says Mr. Plowden, " did our great Alfred 
receive his education." Bede informs us that the 
Anglo-Saxon king Oswald applied to Ireland for 
learned men to teach his people the principles of 
Christianity; and a foreign writer (Henrick of St. 
Germain) under the French monarch Charles the 
Bald, says, " why should I mention Ireland? al- 
most the whole nation, despising the dangers of 
the sea, resort thither with a -numerous train of 
philosophers." Camden also acknowledges that 
" Ireland abounded with men of genius; when lite- 
rature was rejected every where else;" and it is 
frequently related by our writers, in praise of a 
person's education, 

" Exemplo patrum, commotus amore legendi, 
Ivit ad Hybernos, Sophia mirabili claros " 

Spenser confesses that Ireland had the use of let- 
ters long before England, and the younger Scali- 



NOTES. 103 

ger, ciarum et venerabile nomen, says, u du temps 
de Charlemagne et 200 ans apres, omnes fere docti 
etoient d^Iplande." The historian of Charlemagne, 
Sangalus the monk, asserts that the colleges of Pa- 
ris and Pavia were founded by Irish monks; and, 
according to Polidore Virgil, king Alfred sent Jo- 
hannes Scotus Erigena, his own tutor, from Ire- 
land, to be the fi>st public professor and teacher at 
Oxford. Ireland itself was formerly studded with 
seats of learning, and the college of Armagh alone 
contained, as we are told, at one time, seven thou- 
sand students! However these bulwarks of our an- 
cient learning may be sought to be undermined by 
the political vermin of our day, we maybe solaced 
by remarking that they were held in sufficient esti- 
mation by that pure and practical philosopher who, 
by the piety of his life, has given a currency to vir- 
tue, and by the splendour of his intellect, died a 
glory on his country. " I have often wished," says 
Dr. Johnson, " that Irish literature were cultivated. 
Ireland is known to have been once the seat of piety 
and learning, and surely it would be very accepta- 
ble to all thos£ who are curious, either in the ori- 
gin of nations or the affinity of languages, to be 
further informed of the revolutions of a people so 
ancient and once so illustrious." Without, howe- 
ver, having recourse to the venerable authorities of 
the dead, perhaps there may be found, even in our 
day, some faint and shadowy traces of our former 
learning. When our cities and our seminaries re- 
echoed with the dismal war-whoop of persecution 
affrighted literature fled for refuge to the rocks and 



104 NOTES. 

recesses of the country, where, mid the sanctuary 
. of solitude, and secrecy of caverns, she nursed her 
offspring in the hope, and solaced them with the 
history of better times. Even there still the spirit 
of her elder day is not forgotten. "Amid the 
mountains of Kerry," says Mr. Smith in his history, 
* c it is well known that classical learning extends, 
even to a fault, among the poorer classes" — and 
O'Kalloran observes, '• that it is worthy of remark, 
ibis propensity is most prevalent where the people 
have least communication with the adjacent plains, 
and speak pure Irish* Let us hope that the day is 
not far distant when this spark, which still lingers, 
shall be suffered to extend itself, and perhaps, 
should barbarism again overcloud our hemisphere, 
Ireland may shine, in future times as formerly, "a 
A lghttp the nations." 

J? 3 The ruins fvoivn in proud disdain. — Page 41. 

Some of the ruined castles and abbeys in Ireland 
appear to have been of the noblest order of archi- 
tecture, and to mark an sera in the annals of that 
ill-fated country, in which the arts must have flou- 
rished in the highest degree of cultivation; but 
now, alas! 

——Hie, inter flumina nota 

Et fontes sacros, frigus captabis opacum. 

Vis on, Ecloga I. 






NOTES. 105 

J^jfi And the speaks of the brave. — Page 44. 

The organization of the volunteers in Ireland 
forms an epoch which no Irishman should forget, 
because it shoves him of what his country, when 
united, is capable. The story of that period is 
simply this. It had ever been the plan of England 
to garrison Ireland, in time of peace, with a stand- 
ing urmy double the amount of her own, taking into 
consideration their comparative population and ex- 
tent. The fatal policy of the American w T ar, how- 
ever, rendered it necessary to draft away a large 
portion of this establishment, so that in 1778 the 
number was reduced to 5000; and this diminished 
force was daily threatened with an hostile invasion. 
The eye of Europe was turned upon our country, 
and she soon exhibited an object worthy its atten- 
tion. Suddenly the united population rose in arms, 
and mankind saw, with astonishment, an infant mi- 
litary nation ranged, under the banner of the law, 
beaming death and defiance on their enemies! The 
effect was electric — our continental enemies knew 
too well the invincible valour of the Irish to exe- 
cute their menaces, and thus, in the hour of need,, 
this disloyal people saved England from the effects 
of her folly, though it seems they could not shame 
her out of the injustice of her suspicions. 

Having thus rescued the island from foreign in- 
cursion, the attention of the volunteers was turned 
to a fertile source of contemplation, its internal 
grievances. They demanded a free trade and an 
unfettered parliament — so novel and bold a propo* 
e 2 



106 NOTES. 

sition was naturally, at first, received with some 
hesitation, but the irresistible eloquence of our - 
native Demosthenes, wielding our former glory 
against our present apathy, raised the national 
pride, and, as we then thought (eheu fug aces) laid 
the foundations of the national prosperity. " There 
was a time," said Mr. Grattan, " when the vault of 
liberty could hardly contain the flight of your pi- 
nion — some of you went forth like a giant, rejoi- 
cing in his strength, but now you stand like elves 
at the door of your own pandemonium. The arm- 
ed youth of the country, like a thousand streams, 
thundered from a thousand hills, and filled the 
plain with the congregated waters, in whose mir- 
ror was seen, for a moment, the watery imag© of 
the British constitution! — the waters subside — the 
torrents cease — the rill ripples within its own bed, 
and the boys and children of the village paddle in 
the brook." 

Her banner of green and her helm of gold. — Page 44. 

This country formerly abounded with the pre- 
cious metals, and with gold in particular. Scarcely 
a year passes without discovering some gorget, 
shield, or helmet, wrought in the purest gold, and 
of the choicest workmanship. Such relics are ge- 
nerally found in the bogs, amongst which that of 
Cullen in the county of Tipperary has acquired the 
name of " Golden" from the number it contained. 
In Vol. VII. of the Archaeologia there is a letter 
from the late countess of Moira, a name embalmed 



NOTES. 1Q7 

iii the heart of her country, describing 1 a curiosity 
found in this bog. 

" In the year 1692," says the illustrious writer, 
" some workmen, cutting turf for firing, in a bog 
in Tipperary, found a cap or crown of gold weigh- 
ing five ounces, supposed to have belonged to one 
of the provincial kings in the reign of Brian Bor- 
hoime." To this crown Harris also alludes, giving 
it however a date of much higher antiquity. He 
supposes it to have been made before the Christian 
xra, because it has not the cross, " which/* says 
he, u no crown belonging to a Christian prince 
since that period ever was without. 1 ' It is at pre* 
sent preserved at Auglune in Champagne, the re- 
sidence of the Cumerford family. Mr. O'Halloran 
speaks of another crown weighing six ounces, 
found in the same bog, which, upon a test, was 
affirmed by a jeweller to have the least alloy of 
any gold he ever met. So abundantly indeed was 
this metal derived from native mines, th£t we find, 
long after the Norman invasion, an act of the little 
parliament of the Pale, prohibiting the use of gold 
in horse furniture, except to persons of a certain 
rank. 

Lord Strafford, during his administration, sent 
to Charles I. the bit of a bridle made of solid gold, 
weighing ten ounces, found in a bog, and an ingot 
of silver, of 300 ounces, from the royal mines. 
These mines, he tells the secretary of state in one 
of his letters, were so rich, that every fodder of 
lead yielded 301b. of fine silver. There are at pre- 



108 NOTES. 

sent some gold mines in the county of Wicklow, 
which, however, are not worked. The art of mi- 
ning seems to have been very anciently known in 
Ireland, as those who obstinately persist in deny- 
ing Ireland any knowledge whatever beyond that 
of savages, may see by the following extract from 
Mr. Hamilton's very able work on Antrim. 

a About twelve years ago," says he, speaking of 
a coal-mine in Kilkenny, " the workmen, in push- 
ing forward a new adit toward the coal, unexpect- 
edly broke through the rock into a cavern. The 
hole which they opened was not very large, and 
two young boys were made to creep in, with can- 
dles to explore this new region. They accordingly 
went forward, and entered an extensive labyrinth, 
branching off into numerous apartments, in the ma- 
zes and windings of which they were at last com- 
pletely lost. After various vain attempts to>e- 
turn, their lights were extinguished, and they sat 
down together in utter despair of an escape from 
this dreary dungeon. In the mean time the people 
without were alarmed for their safety, fresh hands 
were employed, a passage was at last made for the 
workmen, and the two unfortunate adventurers ex- 
tricated, after a whole night's imprisonment. On 
examining this subterranean wonder it was found 
to be a complete gallery, which had been driven 
forward many hundred yards to the bed of coal; 
that it branched off into various chambers where 
the miners had pushed on their different works; 
that pillars were left at different intervals to sup- 



NOTES. 109 

port the roof— in short it was found to be an exten- 
sive mine, wrought by a set of people at least as ex- 
pert in the business as the present generation. Some 
remains of the tools, and even the baskets used in 
the works, were discovered, but in such a state 
that, on being touched, they immediately fell to 
powder. The antiquity of this work is pretty evi- 
dent 'from this, that there does not remain the 
most remote tradition of it in the country. But it 
is still more strongly demonstrable from a natural 
process which has taken place since its formation; 
for stalactite pillars had been generated, reaching 
from the roof of the pit to the floor, and the sides 
and supports were found covered with sparry in- 
crustations, which the present workmen do not 
observe to be deposited in any definite space of 
time." 
£4 
Ijdnster! If birth alone had made thee great.— 
Page 46. 

The only duke in Ireland, the descendant of a 
noble line of ancestry, and the source, in himself, 
of that purest of all titles, a genuine nobility of 
heart; the name of James duke of Leinster, can 
never be forgotten by the Irish people while grati- 
tude lingers amongst them. He was unanimously 
chosen commander of the volunteers of the metro- 
polis at that trying xra. " A man," says the ve- 
nerable Grattan, " whose accomplishments give a 
grace to our cause, and whose patriotism gave a 
credit to our nobles; whom the rabble itself could 



110 NOTES. 

not see without veneration; as If they heheld not 
only something good but sacred — a man who, 
drooping and faint when we began our struggles, 
forgot his infirmity and found, in the recovery of 
our constitution, a vital principle added to his 
own." Such is the panegyric with which eloquence 
has adorned him — but beauteous as it is, he is em- 
bellished with one more lovely — the lamentation 
of the rich, the blessings of the poor, the sincere, 
silent, heart-rending sorrow of the country. 



-thy holy name 



Still from our hills a beacon light shall flame. — P. 47, 

The duke of Leinster has left a son whom Fame 
has adorned with all his father's patriotism and 
virtue. If so, there is yet an hope for Ireland. The 
people want, and have long wanted, some patrio- 
tic resident nobleman, through whom their grie- 
vances may be honestly stated, and redress de- 
manded. If indeed the young duke be like his fa- 
ther, who is in heaven, viewing his ancestry but 
as so many warnings not to sully their name, hold- 
ing his wealth but for the relief of the poor, and 
his talents for the good of the nation, there is yet 
an hope for Ireland. Happy shall.it be for his coun- 
try, happier for himself. 

" Ille Deum vitam accipiet, divisque videbit 
Permixtos heroas, et ipse videbitur illis." 



NOTES. 1 1 1 

j 

Oil the sweet lone of Flood's harmonious tongue. — 
Page 48. 

Henry Flood, an orator, a patriot, and a states- 
man, long graced, by his eloquence, the Irish 
house of commons. " He made, 1 ' said Mr. Hardy, 
in his able Life of the virtuous lord Charlemont, "a 
conspicuous figure in the annals of his country, and 
he is entitled to the thanks of every public spirited 
man in it, for unquestionably he was the senator 
who, by his repeated discussion of questions sel- 
dom, if ever, approached before, first taught Ire- 
land that she had a parliament. 

Mr. Flood's life had been devoted to the welfare 
of his country, and his dying act corresponded with 
the sentiment. He had long seen with sorrow, the 
neglect of our native language and the dispersion 
of our ancient manuscripts over the libraiies of the 
continent and the Vatican, and, in his will, left, 
according to the calculation of lord Rosse, five 
thousand pounds per annum for the revival of the 
one and the recovery of the other, to Trinity Col- 
lege, Dublin. This noble bequest was, however, 
afterwards frustrated by a decision in a court of 
law. He was a general of the volunteers: and the 
circumstance reminds me of an anecdote full of the 
simplicity which so often accompanies genius. 

Having come to my native town, Sligo, in his 
military capacity, the boys of the rev. Mr. Arm- 
strong's school appeared before him, in martial 
uniform at a review — for at that time the spirit of 
arms alike animated the crutch and the nursery. 



112 NOTES. 

Mood immediately addressed the schoolboy regi- 
ment in the following' terms — " It is related to the 
honour of a Spartan chief, that he was fond of su- 
perintending- the sports of children: your sports 
are superior to those of the Spartan boys — But 
shall I call them sports? No, they are exertions 
which make youths men, and without which men 
are but children! Milton, in his Treatise on Edu- 
cation has set apart precepts for military exercises, 
which your worthy teacher has brought into ex- 
ample, and I behold your early but auspicious ex- 
ertions with the same pleasure the husbandman 
contemplates the pleasing" promise of a benignant 
harvest. Go on — and supply the succession of 
those fruitful labourers for the public good whom 
time may take away.'' Such was the impression of 
this beautiful address upon the youthful mind, that 
I had it verbatim from my father, who happened 
to be a member of the corps, after a recollection 
cf thirty years. 

.2 c Where silver Burgh poured on the nation's ear.— 
Page 48. 

Of the celebrated Hussey Burgh, long the orna- 
ment of the Irish house of commons, I have ex- 
tracted the following character from the pen of 
Mr. Hardy, who was long acquainted with him, so 
that the fidelity of the picture may be relied upon. 

" Walter Hussey, who afterwards took the name 
of Burgh, and was advanced to the station of lord 
chief baron of the exchequer, came into parliament. 



NOTES. 113 

under the auspices of James duke of Leinster. His 
speeches, when he first entered the house of com- 
mons, were very brilliant, very figurative, and far 
more remarkable for that elegant poetic taste, 
which had highly distinguished him when a mem- 
ber of the university, than any logical illustration 
or depth of argument. But, as he was blessed with 
great endowments, every session took away some- 
what from the unnecessary splendour and redun- 
dancy of his harangues. To make use of a phrase 
of Cicero, in speaking of his own improvement La 
eloquence, his orations were gradually deprived of 
all fever. Clearness of intellect, a subtle, refined, 
and polished wit, a gay, fertile, uncommonly fine 
imagination, very classical taste, superior harmony 
and elegance of diction peculiarly characterized 
this justly celebrated man. To those who never 
heard him, as the fashion of this world in eloquence 
as in all things else, soon passes away, it may be 
no easy matter to convey a just idaa of his style of 
speaking, It differed totally from the models 
which have been presented to us by some of the ^ 
great masters of rhetoric in latter days. His elo- 
quence was by no means gaudy, tumid, or ap- 
proaching to that species of rhetoric which the 
Roman critics denominated Asiatic, but it was al- 
ways decorated as the occasion required; it was 
often compressed and pointed, though that could 
not be said to have been its general feature. It was, 
sustained by great ingenuity, great rapidity of in- 
tellect, luminous and piercing satire. The classr- 



114 NOTES. 

cal allusions of this orator, for he was truly one, 
were so appropriate, they followed each other in 
such bright and varied succession, and at times 
spread such an unexpected and triumphant blaze 
around his subject, that all persons who were in 
the least tinged with literature, could never be ti- 
red of listening' to him. The Irish are a people of 
quick sensibility, and perfectly alive to every dis- 
play of ingenuity or illustrative wit. Never did the 
spirit of the nation soar higher than during the 
splendid days of the volunteer institution; and when 
Hussey Burgh, alluding to some coercive laws, and 
to that association then in its proudest array, said, 
in the house of commons, " that such laws were 
sown like dragons' teeth and sprung up armed 
men;" the applause which followed, and the glow 
of enthusiasm which he kindled in every mind far 
exceed my powers of description. " Ele did not,," 
said Mr. Flood, " live to be ennobled, but he was 
ennobled by nature." — I value the just prerogatives 
of ancient nobility, but to the tears and regrets of 
a nation bending over the urn of public and private 
excellence, as Ireland did over his, what has he- 
raldry to add, or at such moments what can it be- 
stow!" 



Ar 



Now heartless traders heap their sordid hoard. — P. 48. 

This is well delineated both by the pen and the 
pencil, in the elegant poem entitled " Petticoat 
Loose, a Fragmentary Tale of the Castle." The 
Irish house of commons is now the mart of the 



NOTES. 115 

moneychangers! a most characteristic transition. 
Of the Irish union — that infamous consummation 
iof our calamities — begot in bribery and baptised 
in blood — which robbed the Irishman of the im- 
pulse of a name — degraded his country into a pro- 
vince — gave him an itinerant legislature and an ab- 
sentee aristocracy — left him -*t the mercy of every 
prentice statesman, and carried away his wealth to 
bribe his foreign masters into contemptuous civili- 
1y — I shall not speak, because I trust it is but a 
fleeting speck, and that Irishmen will never desist 
until the very memory of that penal statute on our 
national pride is obliterated and erased. 

sf '0 To where Kinkora's palace shed 

Its splendours Page 51. 

Kinkora, the palace of Brian. 

J* 

Or Clonmacnoise upreared its head.-~Va.ge 51. 

The celebrated abbey of Clonmacnoise, long 
the retreat of piety and learning, was destroyed, in 
1584, by the garrison of Athlone, who barbarously 
plundered it of every ornament and devastated the 
sacred shrine of the great St. Kieran. The English 
seem to have enjoyed a peculiar pleasure in the an- 
nihilation of our religious edifices, and every anti- 
quity which they possessed. Thus we find lord 
Grey, a sacrilegious incendiary in the reign of Hen- 
ry VIII., destroying the venerable cathedral of 
Down, which the following verse described as pos- 



116 NOTES. 

sessing the remains of three renowned ecclesias* 
tics, — 

" Hi tres in Duno tumulo, tumulantuo in uno, 
BRIGIDA, PATlilCIUS, atque COLUMBA pius. ,J 
Et was in these holy sanctuaries, that what re- 
mained of art or antiquity, after the ravages of the 
Danes, were preserved. They abounded in fine 
paintings and beauteous relics. Cambrensis makes 
mention of a concordance of the four Gospels, 
found in the church of Kildare, so divinely painted 
that he declares, " neither the pencil of an Appel- 
les, nor the chisel of a Lysippus ever formed the 
like; in a word it stems to have been executed by 
something more than a mortal hand." It was care- 
fully destroyed!!! Let no man hereafter profane the 
ancient name of Ireland, because her monuments 
have perished! But, though the transient brass and 
mouldering column bear not down to future ages 
the records of our old magnificence, there is a li- 
ving and far nobler herald to confirm its existence 
to the traveller; the native grandeur of soul; the 
cherished spirit of ancient hospitality; the pure in- 
herent, unpurchasable nobility of heart, still glow 
throughout the island, the embers of its ruined 
greatness — the traditional relics of its hereditary 
pride and defrauded inheritance. 

»J 7 Proud TarcCs temple stood,— Page 51. 

Tara, the grand seat of Ireland's triennial parlia- 
ment, was originally founded by the great Irish fc- 



NOTES. 117 

gislator Ollam, as an old poem preserved by Kea- 
ting tells us. 

" The learned Ollam Fodhla first ordained 
The great assembly where the nobles met, 
And priests and poets and philosophers, 
To make new laws and to amend the old, 
And to advance the honour of their country." 
At this assembly all the kings, priests, poets, 
Li and philosophers of the kingdom attended, and our 
I old histories dwell with peculiar delight on the 
details of its magnificence. 

The room where the parliament sat was 300 feet 
: in length, 40 cubits in height, and had fourteen 
doors. They met three days before the 1st of No- 
vember, and, having spent the two first in friendly 
intercourse, on the third the grand feast of Sam- 
huin, or the moon, commenced. This was a cus- 
tom derived from Fhenicia. The feast opened with 
sacred odes set to a grand variety of national in- 
struments, and after the druids had finished their 
rites, the fire of Samhuin was lighted, and the dei- 
ties solemnly invoked to consecrate the national 
councils. The order of business was first the po- 
lice — then the foreign alliance — next peace and 
war — arjd though last not least in importance, 
the formal registry of the records in the Psalter 
of Tara. The merchants and artizans had also 
their meeting in order to deliver into the grand as- 
sembly the state of trade and manufactures. 

During the festivals the provincial queens gave 
grand assemblies to the ladies of the nobility, and 



118 NOTES. 

so chivalrous were our ancient institutions, witfe 
respect to the fair sex, that the slightest insult of- 
fered to one of them was death without appeal or 
power of pardon. The attention to heraldry was 
surprising for such a distant age. The first notice 
of the assembly was a sound of trumpet, then the 
esquires of the nobility presented themselves at 
the door of the grand hall, and gave in the shields 
and ensigns of their masters to the deputy grand 
marshal, which were ranged under the direction of 
the king at arms — at sound of the second trumpet 
the target-bearers of the general officers gave in 
their insignia, and at the third sound, the kings, 
princes, nobility, and all other constituent parts of 
this great assembly, took their seats with the ut- 
most regularity under their respective banner. 
Such is the account of our oldest writers. 

jj 

The holy seers, the ?ni?istrel band — Page 52. 

With a true minstrel pride the poet of Ireland 
dwells on the high respect paid to the bards of old* 
They had privileges denied to any other order in 
the state. Their persons were sacred, their pro- 
perty secure, the hall of hospitality was ever open 
to them, and the name of bard was a passport even 
among enemies. These privileges were amply re- 
paid by the children of song — they raised the spi- 
rit of the nation — in war inspired the hero — in peace 
civilized the passions — they were the soul of the 
festival, and the herald of the legislator — like the 
fiery pillar which preceded Moses in the wilder* 



NOTES. 119 

ness, he was guided by the " light of the song/' 
and Ireland became, as it were, harmonized into 
order! Mr. Smith, in his fall of Zura, gives a beau- 
ful instance of the superstitious respect in which 
they were held. "The bard, with his harp, goes 
trembling to the door — his steps are like the war- 
rior of many years, when he bears mournful to the 
tomb the son of his son— the threshold is slippery 
with Crigal's wandering blood — across it the aged 
falls — the spear of Duarna is lifted over him — but 
the dying Crigal tells — it is the bard/" 

The bard always attended his patron to battle, 
and remained on the edge of the field, gleaning 
from his exploits the subjects of his future panegy- 
ric — if, however, he perceived him likely to be 
overpowered, he rushed forward, arrayed in his 
flowing robes of white, and, to the music of his 
glittering harp, sung the " eye of the battle" 
" He is entranced — the fillet burst that bound 
His liberal locks — his snowy vestments fail 
In ample folds, and all his floating form 
Doth seem to glisten with divinity." — Mason. 
This war-song, called the " eye of the battle," 
was generally an enumeration of the patron's vir- 
tues, and abounds chiefly in epithets, as may be 
seen by the following specimen addressed, in the 
hour of danger, by the celebrated Fergus, Finn's 
poet, to Gaul Mac Morni. Gaul, vigorous and 
warlike — chief of the intrepid — unboundedly gene- 
rous — the delight of majesty — a wall of unextin- 
guishable fire — rage unremitting — champion re- 



120 » NOTES. 

plete with battles — guide to the rage of heroes — 
son of the great Morna — generous to poets — re- 
spite to warriors — tribute on nations — downfall of 
foreigners." 

Even into the midst of hostile tribes, the minstrels 
used to rush to animate their patrons, and strange 
as it may appear, such was the reverence in which 
they were held, even by enemies, we have but one 
instance, in our whole history, of violence being of- 
fered to their person; and the monarch who thus 
transgressed has descended to us with the oppro- 
brious epithet of Kin-salach, or the " accursed" 
The transaction is related with much minuteness in 
the " book of Sligo." This extreme encouragement 
naturally excited emulation in the composition of 
our music, and to it we owe our confessed superio- 
rity in this delightful science. I have often thought 
our ancient perfection in this respect, no trifling 
proof of our national antiquity. Of every barba- 
rous nation of which we read, their few instruments 
were uncouth, and their strains unmelodious; but 
even so far back as the English invasion, we find 
ours preferred to that of every country in the world, 
even by our avowed vilifier, Cambrensis himself, 
who strains all the power of antithesis in giving its 
eulogium " tarn suavi velocitate, tarn dispari pari- 
tate, tarn discordi concordia, consona redditur et 
completur melodia." The learned Selden, in his 
notes on Drayton, confesses that the Welch mu- 
sic, for the most part, came out of Ireland, with 
Gruftydth ap Conon, prince of North Wales, about 



NOTES, 121 

king Stephen's time; and the illustrious Bacon de- 
clares in his Sylva, that "no harp has the sound so 
melting and so prolonged as the Irish harp.*' Such 
was its fame, indeed, on the continent, that we are 
told by various historians, when the abbey of Ni- 
ville, in France, was founded, the wife of Pepin 
sent to Ireland for musicians and choristers for 
the church music. 

The melancholy airs are uncommonly pathetic, 
so much so, that I have heard of a celebrated Ita- 
lian, who, after listening to some of them, sudden- 
ly exclaimed, "that must be the music of a people 
who have lost their freedom !" One of our wander- 
ing harpers, in allusion to this pathos, placed this 
inscription lately on his harp— > 

" Cur lyra funestas edit percussa sonores ! 
Sicut amissum fors diadem a gemit," 

^aj And violate our paradise — Page 55. 

"Sure," says Spenser, "it is a most beautiful 
and sweet country as any under heaven, being sto- 
red with many goodly rivers, replenished with all 
sorts of fish, most abundantly sprinkled with many 
sweet islands and goodly lakes, like little inland- 
seas, that will carry even ships upon their waters; 
adorned with goodly woods, even fit for building of 
houses and ships, so commodiously, that if some 
princes of the world had them, they would soon 
hope to be lords of all seas, and* ere long, of the 
world/' Such is the description of the country, 



122 NOTES. 

As a companion to it I transcribe another, of its in- 
habitants, by the learnd Camden, a writer so little 
partial to us, that he has been thus quaintly cha- 
racterized. 

"Perlustras Anglos, ocules, Camdene, duobis, 
Uno oculo, Scotos, coecus, Hybernigenas." 
He says, u In universum, gens hsec corpore vali- 
da et imprimis agilis, ammo forti et elato, ingenio 
acri, bellicosa, vitcs prodiga, laboris, frigoris et in- 
ediac patiens, veneri indulgens, hospitibus perbe- 
nigna,amore constans, inimicitiis implacabilis,cre- 
dulitate levis, glorias avida, contumelias et injurize 
impatiens, et in omnes actus vehementissima." 
Those who know the Irish character will easily see 
the fidelity of the picture. In Spenser's descrip- 
tion he has omitted, however, a blessing almost 
peculiar to Ireland — its freedom from venomous 
animals. The natives ascribe this, to a miracle 
wrought by their tutelar saint, St. Patrick, as the 
natives of Malta ascribe the same happy exemption 
to the influence of St. Paul. Ireland has enjoyed 
the blessing certainly for a long series of years; as, 
in the beginning of the eighth century, we find the 
venerable Bede saying, "Nullus ibi serpens vivere 
valeat;" and after him Camden, "Nullus hie ser- 
pens nee venenatum quicquam." There is ascri- 
bed, even to the native oak, the surprising proper- 
ty of destroying spiders; of which the beautiful 
roof of Westminster Hall is an example. The oak 
of this roof was sent to Rufus, at his own request, 



NOTES. 123 

by Turlough, king of Ireland, in the year 1097. 
What a pity it is we do not follow the kindly ex= 
ample of nature, and banish also from our island, 
the religious and political poison which infects it! 

4* 

Erin has sent her warriors bright 

To -win the laurels of the fight. — Page 56. 

This is no idle boast. It is a truth, written in 
blood on every shore in Europe. We need not re- 
fer to Spenser for his testimony, that "there is no 
man who cometh on more boldly to the charge than 
an Irishman;" while Blenheim, Ramilies, Cremona, 
Dettingen, Fontenoy, and innumerable similar mo- 
numents to our national bravery exist — a bravery 
so indisputable, that it even extorted from king 
William, at the siege of Limerick, the unwilling 
declai'ation that, "with the handful of brave Irish- 
men inclosed in the city, he would take it in de- 
spite of his whole English army!" The abbe* Geog- 
hagan, quoting the Camp de Vendome, says, 
"Monsieur de Vendome, qui avoit une estime par- 
ticuliere pour cette belliqueuse nation, a la tete de 
laquelle il avoit livre tant de combats, et remporte* 
tant de victoires, avoua qu'il etoit surpris des ter- 
ribles expeditions que ces bouchers de Parmee 
(c'est ainsi qu'il les appelloit) faisoient en sa pre- 
sence." All France, says he, applauded, and the 
greatest and most powerful monarch crowned the 



124 .NOTES* 

eulogies of this brave and gallant nation, by styling 
them "Les braves IrlandoisS" 



J5 £~ He, -who on JBarossa's height. — Page 56. 

It was serjeant Masterson, a native of Roscom- 
mon in Ireland, who took the famous imperial 
eagle atthebattle of Barossa; this ensign was encir- 
cled with a golden wreath, as a particular mark of 
the emperor's favour. The prince regent, ever 
anxious to reward merit, has since promoted its 
brave captor. 

c) ' // Not Dettingetfs undying name. — Page 57. 

Lord Ligonier's regiment of cavalry, to a man 
Irish, saved the king?s person, and gained the bat- 
tle of Dettingen. 

j y Not Fontenoy's eternal fame.— -Page 57. 

Such was the bravery of our catholic country- 
men, at the battle of Fontenoy, that George II. ex- 
claimed in an agony, "Cursed be the laws which 
deprive me of such subjects!" What a comment 
on that nefarious penal code, which Mr. Burke, so 
justly describes to be "a machine of wise and ela- 
borate contrivance, and as well fitted for the op- 
pression, impoverishment, and degradation of a 



VOTBS. 125 

people, and the debasement in them of human na- 
:ure itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted 
ingenuity of man!" 



J? Not e'en Cremona 9 8 classic flame.— -Page 57* 

At Cremona, the regiments of Dillon and Burke 
saved the whole French army. Such was their ha- 
voc, that it was said, in the English house of com- 
mons, the Irish had done more mischief to the al- 
lies abroad, than they could have done at home by 
the possession of their forfeited estates. 

J y 

Guards oj their prince, and glories of their land. 

Page 59. 

The brave 87th, commanded by sir John Doyle, 
and entirely composed of Irishmen, so distinguish- 
ed themselves in the present campaign, that the> 
prince regent styled them" His oiun Irish-" an epi- 
thet, full of affection in him who gave it, and of 
glory to those who received it.— Let the illustrious 
benefactor but extend his justice, and, in the hour 
of need (which God avert J he will have an island 
for his throne, and its united people for his body- 
guard. / 

It is worthy of remark, that there is scarcely a 
single name of any note at present on the peninsula 



1£6 NOTES. 

which is not Irish. — Wellington, Pack, Blake, Car 
rol, O'Donnel, Trant, Beresford, and countlei 
others, form a bright and dazzling constellatio 
in the night of Ireland's sorrow ! Unhappy coun- 
trymen! In America you lead the bar — in Spain you 
guide the army — in England you adorn the senate 
— at home you are — disqualified! 

j£ tf Whatever may be his humble lot — Page 60. 

"Dives, inops, Romse, sen, si fors ita jusserit 
exul." 



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